![]() The actual intersection of the crash is now a mall. ![]() Today, Kingston Pike is a main commercial road lined for miles with retail stores and gas stations. rocketing around the bend, he lost control, sending his car into a dirt bank." The historian found a witness to the crash and wrote this account: "After clearing the first roadblock Tweedle-o-twill roared down Kingston Pike, unaware that a second roadblock, a row of cars, bumper to bumper, was aligned at the intersection of Morrel Road and Kingston Pike. Blazing right through Knoxville, out on Kingston Pike / then right outside of Beardon, there they made the fatal strike." The ending lyrics go this way: "Roaring out of Harlan, revving up his mill / he shot the gap at Cumberland, and screamed by Maynordsville / with G-men on his taillights, roadblocks up ahead / the mountain boy took roads that even angels feared to tread. Robert Mitchum, who starred in the movie, also co-wrote the theme song - and sang it, as well. ![]() It was the tale of Tweedle-o-twill that formed the basis for the movie.Īccording to historians, Thunder Road was also the code name assigned to the undercover operation to nab moonshiners because in the Appalachian foothills Thunder Road was a term coined "to identify the nighttime route from Harlan, Kentucky, to Knoxville." Knoxville has embraced Thunder Road because of the spectacle crash of a notorious Kentucky moonshiner named "Tweedle-o-twill." According to a local historian, Thunder Road emptied into Knoxville along what is today called Kingston Pike. ![]() This was because of the loud, low rumbles of the booze-running vehicles that were heavily modified to outrace the authorities. Look for Tennessee state routes 33 and 25, which were the routes heaviest trafficked by moonshiners and the actual byways nicknamed Thunder Road. These Appalachian roads lead to the General Longstreet Museum (Russellville), the Andrew Johnson Tailor Shop (Greeneville), Clinch Mountain Overlook (Tennessee), Bush Beans Visitor Center (Dandridge), Jefferson Country Courthouse (Dandridge), town of Cumberland Gap (Tennessee) or the Little Congress Bicycle Museum (Cumberland Gap). The stops today are neither stills nor forest hideaways but rather state parks, historic homes, unique eateries, churches and cemeteries, museums and even wineries. These old dirt roads are now main travel corridors and highways and are no longer dangerous and unknown. When I was in Knoxville, I picked up a self-driving guide called "White Lightning: Thunder Road to Rebels Trail," noting that "Rebels careened around the curves of Thunder Road transporting illegal homemade corn whiskey under the cover of darkness." At the center of the brochure was a map of the four-state (Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and North Carolina) corner of Appalachia known for its moonshine, and the Thunder Roads were delineated. The moonshine-running corridors of the region were known as Thunder Road, hence the title of the movie. "Thunder Road" was the epitome of cheap, teen-oriented films known back in the day as a "drive-in movie." It was about a famous moonshine-runner during the Depression, when alcohol was illegal and the best that could be had was made by Appalachian backwoodsmen. No, the house manager was looking forward to watching "Thunder Road." Decades before "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" was the mainstay of late-night moviegoers "Thunder Road" was the late-night standard for drive-ins from one end of the country to the other - but especially in the South. However, in the coming months, the Paramount would be showing classic films, and for one movie she said she was going to break her own rule and just sit and watch. No matter the Broadway show or how famous the musician, she never breaks to sit with the audience to watch as if she were a civilian. The house manager of the beautifully restored movie palace, the Paramount, in Bristol, Tennessee, is very strict about her position.
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