South PIttsburg, Tenn.’s Cedar Avenue is loaded with quaint shops, and colorful local people. The Princess Theatre, at center, reopened recently after a major renovation.POTENTIAL POINTS OF INTERESTBledsoe: Fall Creek Falls State Park, historic downtown Pikeville, Ross House, Bridgeman House, Bledsoe State Forest, Head of the Creek (also Cumberland County), Cumberland Mountain State Park (Cumberland County)Marion: Nickajack Dam and Lake, Children’s Holocaust Exhibit, Pickett’s Trout Farm, historic downtown South Pittsburg, Buttonwillow Church Civil War Dinner Theater, Prentice Cooper State ParkSequatchie: Dunlap Coke Ovens Park and Museum, Tennessee Tree Toppers, Sequatchie County Veterans Memorial Park, eastern edge of Savage Gulf State Park
With a few brainstorming sessions behind them, government officials and tourism planners are cooking up ideas for a national scenic byway through the Sequatchie Valley.
“We’re still kind of sorting through this inventory of sites,” said Paul Archambault, historic preservation planner and assistant director of community development for the Southeast Tennessee Development District.
Three meetings on July 17 gathered input from officials in Bledsoe, Sequatchie and Marion counties on what sites to promote on a tour of the Sequatchie Valley.
Each county has sites to consider — including obvious ones such as Fall Creek Falls State Park on the western Bledsoe County line, Nickajack Lake and Dam and Foster Falls in Marion County and the Dunlap Coke Ovens Park and Museum in Sequatchie — but officials said others off the main path or tucked away off side roads should be studied to see how they might fit into a tour.