A Piece of Knox County History:
Dixie Highway Garden Club
Dixie Highway Garden Club, founded by Carolyn P. Brown, is 100 years old. She and her husband, John, were wealthy residents known for their restoration of Bleak House – a civil war era home built by the Armstrong family on Kingston Pike (now located between Sequoyah Hills and the UT campus). In the early 1900s, the Browns restored it to its Italianate glory and renamed it “Casa Modena.” Carolyn was famous for her renovation of the terraced gardens leading down to the Tennessee River. Although Carolyn’s family unfortunately predeceased her, her estate built the first UT Student Center.
While living in ancestral homes, the founders were modern thinkers who named their club after the newly completed Dixie Highway, a series of roads connecting the Midwest with sunny Florida. Early automobile dealer Carl Fisher had the idea for this “highway” to promote auto travel and boost his real estate investments in Miami Beach. Many other businessmen, along with local and state governments, jumped on board to promote auto travel tourism. The eastern route of the Dixie Highway led right down Kingston Pike (US Route 70). The federal interstate highway system has long since usurped the Dixie Highway, but Knoxville has a few remnants – like Dixie Lee Junction, where Kingston Pike and Lee Highway split.
In the 1920s, Garden Clubs were all the rage with an emphasis on helping women decide what varieties of fruits, vegetables, and ornamental plants to grow. They expanded beyond horticulture to include floral design and civic and environmental responsibility. Have you seen a Blue Star or Gold Star Marker honoring members of our military? Those are a bit of Dixie Highway GC’s civic work.
The Tennessee Federation of Garden Club’s State Headquarters are here at the historic Racheff House & Gardens & Arboretum. Ivan Racheff bought Knoxville Iron Works in 1947, then began a garden on the site of a former steel mill junk pile next to the 1902 house used as the mill’s office. He gifted the house and garden to the Tennessee Federation in 1970, and it is now a public arboretum – a wonderful place to spend some time in a beautiful garden. (Racheff Gardens has also been a featured Open Garden for Dogwood Arts.)
Many of the Dixie Highway GC’s current members live in West Knoxville and Farragut, close to Dixie Highway. In addition to juried flower shows, the members help with Racheff House and local projects like landscaping Shangri-La Therapeutic Academy of Riding (STAR) and Wreaths Across America, as well as donating to many local organizations. The club will be celebrating its centennial on September 12, 2024, at Carolyn P. Brown’s “Casa Modena.”