Millions have seen Rock City, Have You?

I try to photograph this barn every time I make the drive from Knoxville to Nashville - at least when my wife is driving. This time, I got some good evening sunlight. It's one of the most often seen rock city barns since it is along Interstate 40 in Roane County.

This is now one of over 90 different Rock City Barns I have photographed and uploaded to Flickr in my Rock City Barns set. People often ask me how I've found so many of them. I have drawn from many resources such as books and web sites and sometimes luck, but there's not really one "go to" place to find them all. Well, now on my website, I have tried to create a one stop source for the locations of all of the barns I've been to. On my Map of Rock City Barns page, I have plotted each barn on a Map.

Hernando de Soto Bridge as seen from Mud Island

Hopefully, this bridge will reopen soon so traffic can get back to normal. Several weeks ago, one of the beams was found with a crack and all traffic has been suspended until it could be repaired.

The Hernando de Soto Bridge carries Interstate 40 across the Mississippi River and connects Memphis and Arkansas. The through arch bridge opened in 1973 and is a total of 9,432 feet including where it crosses Ark floodplains. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernando_de_Soto_Bridge

Hernando DeSoto Bridge at Dawn - Memphis

This iconic bridge carries Interstate 40 over the Mississippi river near downtown Memphis, TN. Built in 1973, this two span steel through arch bridge has a total length of 1.8 miles. The length of the bridge covered by the arches is 1800 feet. This view is taken from Tom Lee Park.

Hernando de Soto Bridge

The Hernando de Soto Bridge carries Interstate 40 across the Mississippi River and connects Memphis and Arkansas. The through arch bridge opened in 1973 and is a total of 9,432 feet including where it crosses Ark floodplains.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernando_de_Soto_Bridge

Hernando DeSoto Bridge at Dusk - Memphis

This iconic bridge carries Interstate 40 over the Mississippi river near downtown Memphis, TN. Built in 1973, this two span steel through arch bridge has a total length of 1.8 miles. The length of the bridge covered by the arches is 1800 feet. This view is taken from Tom Lee Park.

Marking Time

This sundial is a public art project by Preston Farabow in 2007. With Interstate 40 in the background, is is located at a rest area at the easternmost cornet of Smith County, TN

Whitworth Memorial Baptist Church

You can see this church from I-40. I had passed it many times on the east side of Nashville, so I decided to find it from the street it was on.

It looks like a church that would be several decades old, but it was built in 2004.

The Whitworth family owned some farmland that I-40 cut through. The land on this side of the interstate was given to be this church

Bucksnort exit along Interstate 40

One of the many reasons why northerners make fun of Tennessee.

See Beautiful Rock City

See Beautiful Rock City
Near Chattanooga, Tenn.

Here is a tough to get to Rock City Barn that is not recommended, but there's no other real way to go see it. This barn is located off of Interstate 40 at exit 356. Specifically, for the people in Roane County travelling northbound on TN326 / TN58, this barn is located just off of the eastbound on-ramp to I-40. When I first learned of this barn several years ago, I took that on-ramp only to find that you can just barely see the barn through the trees.

On this particular day near the end of fall after the leaves have fallen off, it's a little bit easier to see, but not really. I parked on the shoulder of the on-ramp to try to get a closer look on foot. As it turns out, there was a well-established path through the overgrowth to get a closer look. (I had no idea there were so many of us wanting to photograph this barn!) At the time, the entire property looked desolate with no signs of anyone living there and a for sale sign in front of the house. If I thought someone actively lived here, I wouldn't have tried it and would have sat in the car pouting like my previous occasion where I tried to see it through the trees.

This barn has a bonus challenge for anyone reading this who might be extra daring. The other side is also painted with the message "See Rock City Today." I wasn't particularly keen on weed-whacking to get to the other side, but maybe you'd like to try it. To me, the weird thing is I'm not sure how many people have ever seen the other side. The line of trees makes it virtually impossible today. With the angle of the barn, it would have been awfully difficult to see from the westbound traffic on I-40 or the on-ramp with your head turned around.

See it on a google map here: goo.gl/maps/dYx17

This is now one of 83 different Rock City Barns I have photographed and uploaded to Flickr in my Rock City Barns set. People often ask me how I've found so many of them. I have drawn from many resources such as books and web sites and sometimes luck, but there's not really one "go to" place to find them all. Well, now on my website, I have tried to create a one stop source for the locations of all of the barns I've been to. On my Map of Rock City Barns page, I have plotted each barn on a Google Map.

Kingston Steam Plant

My wife and I have a tradition, any time we make the drive between Knoxville and Nashville, whoever is in the passenger seat gets out the camera and takes a picture of the Kingston Steam Plant (aka the Kingston Fossil Plant) while crossing the Interstate 40 bridge over Watts Bar Lake. Somehow, both of us missed the story when the plant made national news with the coal fly ash slurry spill which was one of the worst environmental disasters in state history.

View of the Hernando DeSoto Bridge from Poplar Ave

Seen early in the morning in downtown Memphis when there was some morning fog. The double arch bridge opened in 1973 to connect Tennessee and Arkansas via Interstate 40 over the Mississippi River.

In the news: Rock City Barns being repainted

There have been several stories lately about how the folks at Rock City have had some of their old barns repainted. They've hired Jim Byars, son of the original painter Clark Byars to visit a few of the barns. His painting partner is Don Parris.

First, here's a gallery of a barn on US27 near Lafayette, GA getting redone:
Repainting Rock City Barn

And then, here's a video Chattanooga News Channel 9 showing this barn being painted.
Rock City Barns, A Southern Icon

More recently, a barn along Interstate 40 in Roane County was repainted just a couple of days ago. Here's what it looked like when I was there:

(It looked freshly painted back then, about 5 & 1/2 years ago.)

Here's a story about this barn's repainting:
Rock City Barn Messaging Going Strong Even After 80 Years/

This article mentions the Henderson Barn along Little River Canyon Parkway near Ft. Payne, AL. Here's a photo of that barn, also from nearly 5 and 1/2 years ago.

Old Texaco Ad barn

This is quiate an old, faded advertisement mounted on a barn near Dickson, TN. This as was meant to reach westbound travelers on Interstate 40 before exit 172. Alas, this is quite a busy area today and the Texaco appears to be no more.

If you can't read it, it has the Texaco logo at top. the next line, which has been partially covered up to keep the tractors from being exposed to the elements has GROC NEXT EXIT BEER

As I was driving down I-40, I wondered if I saw this the way I thought I did out of the corner of my eye, and I spent the next 30 minutes hunting down this barn.

Regas Restaurant Sign - Knoxville

This is a nice old-fashioned restaurant sign which is seen by motorists passing by on Interstate 40 on the east side of downtown Knoxville. I've heard it's a popular place and it's not too far from Old City. I drove by along the street level one evening and the parking lot was packed.

A drive through the Appalachians

The interstate doesn't always make for picturesque views. However, when I-40 is about to go through the mountains around Tennessee and North Carolina, I believe the view is breathtaking. And then we drive the interstate up there and it gets even better.

This is somewhere around mile marker 442 in Cocke County

Millions Have Seen Rock City, Have You?

Millions have people have seen this painted barn, perhaps more than any other Rock City Barn, since it's on a popular interstate, I-40 between Nashville and Knoxville. It's in Roane County just east of Kingston with Buttermilk road as the side street. The other side has a very faded painted ad for Lookout Mountain's sister-attraction Ruby Falls, but it is difficult to see as trees that weren't there decades ago block the view from the interstate.