States: Tennessee
Start near: Nashville (starts here) · Chattanooga (starts here) · Huntsville (about 1 h 55 min to Chattanooga)
the old Dixie Highway over Monteagle, with the whiskey dogleg
US 41: Dixie Highway, Nashville to Chattanooga is a ~220-mile back-roads route from Nashville to Chattanooga on US 41, US 231, TN 82, TN 55 and US 41A, driven in 2 days, that stays off I-24 through the Upper South.
Before I-24 there was the Dixie Highway, and US 41 still runs its line: out of Nashville by Murfreesboro and the Stones River killing ground, down through Bell Buckle's one-block downtown and the Walking Horse country to Lynchburg for the whiskey, the Old Stone Fort's two-thousand-year-old walls at Manchester, up the Cumberland Plateau to Monteagle's Chautauqua and Sewanee's Oxford-in-the-woods, and the long grade down to the Tennessee River at Nickajack and Chattanooga. Nashville's best day trip in any direction, and a better two.
📍 Civil War Trails markers thick from Murfreesboro to Tullahoma: the 1863 Tullahoma Campaign the newspapers forgot because Gettysburg happened the same week.
US 41 and 70S out through the Murfreesboro battlefield, then the Bell Buckle and Shelbyville back roads south to the hollow where the whiskey is made.
New Year's 1862–63, the bloodiest battle in Tennessee for its size, and the oldest intact Civil War monument in the country, the Hazen Brigade's of 1863. The Slaughter Pen and Hell's Half Acre make a short loop.
A one-block railroad town of quilt shops and the Bell Buckle Cafe, live music Saturdays with WLIJ on the air; the Webb School's 1886 campus; the RC Cola–MoonPie Festival in June, for the record.
The 'Walking Horse Capital of the World' stages the breed's world championship over eleven days ending Labor Day weekend; the rest of the year the barns and the Blue Ribbon Circle are the show.
Est. 1866, in a county that has been dry since Prohibition; tours walk from the cave spring to the charcoal mellowing vats, and Miss Mary Bobo's on the square serves a reservations-only midday dinner the way the boarding house did.
TN 55 to Tullahoma, with George Dickel's distillery up Cascade Hollow as the other whiskey, and the Duck River at Manchester, where the Old Stone Fort's walls predate the Cherokee by a thousand years.
The other Tennessee whisky, spelled the Scots way and chilled before charcoal filtering since 1870, in a hollow prettier than Lynchburg's and a tenth as crowded.
Rosecrans's nine-day maneuver in June 1863 pushed Bragg out of Middle Tennessee almost without a battle, finished the week of Gettysburg and Vicksburg and was forgotten for it; the Beechgrove and Hoover's Gap markers tell it.
A 2,000-year-old Woodland-period enclosure on a peninsula between the Duck and Little Duck rivers, with waterfalls on three sides; the walls' purpose is still argued, the walk is not.
US 41 climbs the Cumberland Plateau's western escarpment to Monteagle, the 1882 Chautauqua assembly, and the University of the South at Sewanee, 13,000 acres of Gothic sandstone and bluff overlooks.
A Chautauqua that never stopped: 160 Victorian cottages on a gated 100 acres, an eight-week summer platform season since 1882, and the Mountain Goat Market across the road for lunch.
All Saints' Chapel, the Memorial Cross overlook, the Perimeter Trail's twenty miles along the bluffs; the Writers' Conference in July; Morgan's Steep at sunset.
The long grade off the plateau through Tracy City's coal country to Jasper and the Sequatchie, the Tennessee River at Nickajack, and the river gorge into Chattanooga.
One of the best hikes in the South: along a creek of boulders and swimming holes to Foster Falls, 12.5 miles one way, or the 2.5-mile loop at the Grundy Forest end.
Tennessee's oldest family bakery (1902), in the coal camp the Swiss colonists built; the salt-rising bread.
A German railcar in a middle-school yard holding eleven million paper clips, collected by Whitwell's students from 1998 on to count the victims; the 'Paper Clips' film (2004). Up TN 28 from Jasper.
The cave where Johnny Cash went to die in 1967 and came out sober, now a bat sanctuary flooded by the TVA lake; the Maple View boardwalk watches a quarter-million gray bats leave at dusk, May to September.
The Battle Above the Clouds (1863) from the top; Rock City and Ruby Falls are the roadside-America layer, the Incline Railway the way up.
Chattanooga's 1891 bridge, the world's longest pedestrian bridge when it reopened in 1993; the Hunter Museum and Bluff View at one end, Coolidge Park's carousel at the other.
US 41: Dixie Highway, Nashville to Chattanooga is about 220 miles and takes 2 days at a back-roads pace.
It runs from Nashville to Chattanooga.
It follows US 41, US 231, TN 82, TN 55 and US 41A.
It avoids I-24, using US 41, US 231, TN 82, TN 55 and US 41A instead.
15 stops are mapped, including Stones River National Battlefield, Bell Buckle, Tennessee Walking Horse Celebration, Jack Daniel's Distillery and George Dickel.
Nashville to Atlanta on the Dixie Highway (3 days) and Nashville Day Trips: the Dixie Highway Sampler (3 days).
The atlas’s seasonal note for this route: “Jack Daniel's tours sell out on summer weekends; book online, and know that Moore County is dry, so the tour's sample is the legal loophole.”
Nashville to Atlanta on the Dixie Highway (3 days) · Nashville Day Trips: the Dixie Highway Sampler (3 days)
Connects with: Natchez Trace Parkway · US 41: Dixie Highway & the Atlanta Campaign · The Overhill Country
More in the Upper South: The Valley Pike · Bull Run to the Bloody Angle · The Crooked Road · Blue Ridge Parkway & the Smokies · Highway 64: Shiloh to Lookout Mountain · Bourbon, Bluegrass & Shakers · The Constitution Route & 231 · The Overhill Country · Gold, Clay & Longleaf · US 11: The Valley Road South · Skyline Drive & the Parkway · Lee's Retreat · The Booth Escape Route · US 23: The Country Music Highway · US 52: The Mine Wars Road · The Midland Trail · The Quiet Zone · The Wilderness Road · Moonbows & the Gorge · US 60: The Mutton Line · US 70: Broadway of America · The Middle Tennessee Pike · US 127: The Plateau & the Sale · US 11E: The Great Valley Road · US 64: The Waterfall Byway · SC 11: The Cherokee Foothills · The Old Ninety Six District · Old Salem to Mayberry · US 58: The Last Capital Road · The Dragon & the Skyway