Home Care In Rossville, TN

Drivers headed for downtown Chattanooga on Rossville Boulevard began encountering a new traffic pattern this week that shifted the flow of vehicles from four to two lanes so workers can complete repairs on the Interstate 24 west on-ramp bridge.

Monday's launch on repairs started a 12-day clock on the project, and if the weather allows, the work could be finished in a matter of days, according to Tennessee Department of Transportation spokesperson Rae Anne Bradley.

"From the start of their lane closure, the contractor has 12 continuous days to finish the repair work," Bradley said Thursday in an email. "Weather permitting, the contractor is expected to finish early and fully reopen to traffic by early next week."

During a recent inspection, damage to an outer steel beam was found on the on-ramp bridge that northbound traffic on Rossville Boulevard uses to reach I-24 west. The damage forced the closure of the ramp in May, according to the state transportation officials. The other lanes on I-24 west over Rossville Boulevard are safe for travelers, state officials said.

(READ MORE: Rossville Boulevard corridor upgrades eyed as business improvement district)

Mid-State Construction Co., from Livingston, Tennessee, is the contractor on the repair project.

The 12-day timeline could be affected by rain each day going into next week. There is no chance of rain Saturday but a 40% chance Sunday, rising to 80% Monday, according to the National Weather Service. The chance of rain Tuesday and Wednesday is 60% both days.

Fortunately, the contractor has already made considerable progress, Bradley said.

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Rossville Boulevard on-ramp to I-24 repairs

"On Wednesday, the contractor began the process of heating up the bent steel bridge girder to straighten it out," she said of repair plans. "Then they'll splice a steel plate onto the girder for reinforcement, and then wash and texture coat the repaired girder. Once this has all been completed, the contractor will remove the lane closure and restore traffic back to its normal pattern on Rossville Boulevard."

Rossville Boulevard is the name for Chattanooga's portion of U.S. Highway 27, a federal road built early in the last century that today traces a path from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Miami, passing through Tennessee from Kentucky about 10 miles north of Oneida and exiting the state in Chattanooga, where the road enters Rossville, Georgia.

Rossville Boulevard was dubbed the "Road of Remembrance" in Chattanooga in 1930 when the American Legion Auxiliary, Davis King Summers Post No. 14 erected a bronze marker fixed to a stone pillar on the east side of Rossville Boulevard at the intersection of 32nd Street. The marker is dedicated "to the American soldiers who in three wars have marched along this road."

(READ MORE: Chattanooga-area artists selected for Rossville Boulevard Corridor Art and Climate Project)

On the west side of Rossville Boulevard another bronze marker mounted on a matching pillar amends the east side's statement to "four American armies have marched over this road, two opposing armies in the Civil War 1861-1865, one in the Spanish-American War 1898 and the last in the World War 1917-1918."

There is no obvious explanation for the difference, but the pillar on the west side appears to be missing a second plaque at the bottom.

While the city has no role in repairs, Chattanooga officials are happy the work is progressing in time for the next major holiday.

"We appreciate TDOT's communication with us and allowing the repairs to have top priority, which restores the traffic patterns in time for the July Fourth holiday season once complete," city spokeperson Justin Strickland said in an email Thursday.

Until the project is finished, traffic headed toward Nashville from Rossville Boulevard is being detoured to East 23rd Street and then back onto I-24 west at the Fourth Avenue interchange, according to the state.

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

ROSSVILLE, Tenn. — When Betty Salmon opened the Wolf River Cafe in Rossville’s town square in 1989, people told her it would never work. “When I opened this place people thought I had lost my mind,” Salmon said. But almost 30 years later, her down-home restaurant is hopping — and lately, so is the town square around it. Located in Fayette County a few miles east of Collierville, Rossville is tiny, but boasts a historic district and about a half-dozen storefronts next to the railroad and near a boat landing on the Wolf River. Salmon said that people from all around the Mid-South began coming to her cafe. On a recent day, a group of travelers from The Netherlands stopped in thanks to a recommendation. “I mean people come here from everywhere. It’s just been a blessing,” Salmon said. As a lifelong Rossvillian, Salmon said her overall goal has been to help people realize that Rossville is just a good place to live and to start a business. “It’s been nice to have some other people besides me,” Salmon said. “To share the square with me.”

In 2015, Joe Paul renovated a Rossville storefront and kitchen for his award-winning Papi Joe’s Tennessee Pepper Sauce. Paul said the 100-year-old building was perfect for his growing business. “I’m artisan, I’m small town, I’m local so I wanted a place like this,” Paul said. “Because this is what I am.” Paul started with his pepper sauce and has now added a barbecue sauce and a Bloody Mary mix but because the of the growth of his sauces he’s had to move into his own kitchen. Paul said he looked at lots of other locations but settled on the historic district of Rossville because he loved what came with small towns. “I like the fact that people walk in here they may, just like you all, may or may not know what I am but when they come in we have a good experience and they leave with or without a product,” Paul said. For sisters McLain Craig and Salem Baker, of the new Halo salon located next door to Paul’s building, it was a simple decision. “This sort of fell in our lap because Rossville is booming,” Craig said as she worked on a client’s hair. “Booming” might be an overstatement for Rossville. The Census Bureau says the town’s population grew 58 percent in the last 10 years — from 518 residents to 818. Still, the salon has been open for a year and Craig said they’ve already grown enough that they are looking for more stylists. The sisters said they don’t live in Rossville but that it was central to each of their homes.

Being one of the very few places to eat in Rossville, the Wolf River Cafe has become a hub for visitors and regulars alike. Salmon is often the one behind the cash register, often found chatting up the regulars or visitors who came from out of town to visit her little cafe. The cafe opens its doors for breakfast at 6:30 a.m. and usually closes its doors around 8 p.m. but Salmon suggests visitors who come should be ready to be patient. Due to the small building and high demand it takes them a bit to turn a table. “Be patient. We get our food out as fast as we can and it takes us a little while to turn our tables but just be patient and we hope they enjoy the food,” Salmon said. Salmon said that because the considerable wait time on Friday and Saturday nights they often suggest customers enjoy the scenery around the lake or visit her side business, the In High Cotton gift shop. Her one request for the growing square: “To not grow to big. I guess I’m selfish but I just want to keep the small town atmosphere.”

If you are of a certain age, you might remember Mike's Bar-B-Q on Rossville Boulevard.

Today, the address - 4211 Rossville Blvd. - is the location of a Dollar General store. But in the mid-20th century, it was home to the "dancing pig," a neon sign outside a popular drive-in restaurant that still animates the memories of people who grew up in the Rossville area in the 1950s and 1960s.

"It was pink," remembers Essie Bearden Morelock, "and every time my dad drove down Rossville Boulevard, I would look for the little pig."

When this vintage photo of Mike's Bar-B-Q - part of the ChattanoogaHistory.com archive - was posted on a Rossville High School nostalgia page on Facebook this week, the response was swift.

"I remember an advertisement that they had on their sign once 'Wanted, man to BBQ,'" posted Sandra Goodner Johnson. "Although I knew what they meant, I'm sure there were a lot of people that had names of people that they would like to BBQ."

Charlotte Gilbreath remembers, "They had trays that hung on the open windows of cars."

"Lots of drag racing on the boulevard," recalls Richard Shaffner. "A whole lot of muscle cars."

"They had a huge stuffed fish on the wall and the best French fries and burgers," wrote Terry Francis.

A newspaper advertisement from 1961 noted that Mike's Bar-B-Q was offering a Thanksgiving dinner with turkey and dressing, three vegetables and hot rolls for 95 cents - less than the cost of a glass of iced tea in most restaurants today.

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Another print ad from 1950 appeared under the beckoning headline, "After the movies, follow the crowd to Mike's Bar-B-Q." It noted that the barbecue there was cooked with charcoal and hickory and that the restaurant also specialized in "steaks, chicken and chops." In the ad, the owner's name is listed as Mike Zarzour.

A help-wanted ad for Mike's from the period read, "Curb girls and waitresses. Must be neat. No phone calls."

As a gathering place for young people, there were occasional dust-ups in the parking lot, some natives remember.

Indeed, a newspaper article in the Chattanooga Daily Times in May 1962 recounts a "knife and lug-wrench brawl" in the parking lot of the restaurant that left three people hurt, including two 17-year-olds and a 28-year-old employee of a nearby service station.

More information

Launched by history enthusiast Sam Hall in 2014, ChattanoogaHistory.com is designed to preserve historical images in the highest resolution available. If you have old photo negatives, glass plate negatives, or original nondigital prints taken in the Chattanooga area, contact Sam Hall at [email protected] for information on how they may qualify to be digitized and preserved at no charge.

On a more tender note, Beverly Williams of Chattanooga recalls that her aunt and uncle met at Mike's Bar-B-Q.

"My uncle met his future wife in the parking lot there," she wrote on Facebook. "Aunt Ruth was an immigrant from Germany, sitting in her car with her sister.

"She once told me how, sitting there with the car windows down, she heard someone going 'pssst, pssst.' It was Uncle Nolan, trying to get her attention. They struck up a conversation, and he asked for her number. They began dating and later married. They were married until each passed away. They were my favorite Aunt and Uncle, and I miss them very much."

Follow the "Remember when, Chattanooga?" group on Facebook.

Contact Mark Kennedy at [email protected]

USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee

Real estate consultants have filed a lawsuit that contends a prominent developer failed to pay them for services related to recruiting Norfolk Southern Railway to the far east side of the Memphis metro area.

B&L Management Group LLC of Eads, Tennessee, filed the fraud action in federal district court against William Adair, a former insurance executive who in 2009 was instrumental in the Virginia railroad selecting Rossville for the Memphis Regional Intermodal Facility.

Norfolk Southern opened the $129 million intermodal yard in 2012 on Adair farmland. It is near a large tract of land controlled by Adair and developed since 2012 into a 1,500-acre industrial park named Gateway Global Logistics Center.

In the lawsuit, B&L says it worked with Adair to recruit the railroad under an agreement that pledged to pay them using money earned on the sale of farmland near the rail yard.

? See also: Evanoff: Joe Biden got it wrong about that Rossville rail yard

According to the lawsuit, the deal called for paying B&L 15 percent of the sale price on 746 acres in Adair’s control. The consultants contend they were never paid after several parcels were sold. Tenants in the new industrial park include distribution centers operated by Post cereal, Tire & Battery Corp. and Volvo truck.

Adair disputed the contention in an interview, saying the 2009 agreement calls for paying B&L when it brought in clients to the industrial park.

“To my knowledge they never brought one nickel to the table,’’ said Adair, who added that CB Richard Ellis, a Memphis real estate firm, was signed to market the industrial park.

"My clients brought Norfolk Southern to the table. Mr. Adair's contract expressly says that. I would challenge him to point to any language in the contract that requires them to bring any more nickels to his table," said B&L attorney Darrell Phillips, a lawyer in Germantown.

State business records show B&L’s registered agent is Dwain Beydler. He’s a former Memphis Chamber of Commerce workforce development senior vice president who went on to open Palladian Manor Homes, a construction firm in Eads.

After the 2008 financial crash, he and wife Kathy filed personal bankruptcy, listing assets of $526,501 and liabilities of $762,300, federal court records show.

Beydler’s partner in B&L is Donnie Leggett. He is the former chairman of the Fayette County Chamber of Commerce and former chairman of the Hardeman Fayette Utility District, which provides natural gas to the Rossville area.

The lawsuit contends Adair claimed to own property that was later found to be in the hands of others.

Adair said the land cited in the lawsuit is owned by his wife, daughters and four family trusts, including his William C. Adair Jr. Trust.

Adair, of Senatobia, Mississippi, created Direct General Insurance Co. in 1991 and sold the Nashville-based business in 2007 for $685 million.

Phillips filed the lawsuit March 20 in U.S. District Court in Memphis.

Kellanova is planning to close two plants and make other changes as it aims to improve its supply chain and cut costs.

The snacks maker said in an SEC filing last week it plans to close its Rossville, Tennessee Eggo waffles factory in 2024 and move breakfast foods production to other facilities.

“This is difficult news for our employees and will result in the loss of 140 jobs. It is never easy when people are losing jobs. We are committed to assisting our employees with resources and support,” Kellanova said in an emailed statement.

The Pringles and Cheez-It manufacturer also plans to shutter its plant in Manchester, U.K. It announced the closure, which could take place by 2026, on its quarterly earnings call last week. The facility employs 360 people and produces cereals such as Corn Flakes and Rice Krispies.

Kellogg completed its long-awaited split last October with the creation of Kellanova, its snack business, and WK Kellogg Co, its North American cereal operations. Kellanova continues to handle Kellogg’s international cereal segment, while WK Kellogg Co manages the North American cereal segment.

Steve Cahillane, Kellanova’s CEO, said on the earnings call that the company will move the production from the Manchester plant into two different facilities in the UK. Kellanova chose to close the plant due to challenges it has faced since the start of the pandemic with boosting its efficiency, he said.

“These are high-return projects that require very little cash upfront and will start delivering savings by late this year,” Cahillane said.

The company’s UK managing director Chris Silcock said in a statement to Food Manufacture that the snacking giant didn’t see a future for the Manchester factory. The company “can’t escape the fact that the site opened in 1938.”

The decision to reorganize its frozen foods operations in the U.S. comes as the company saw a 5% year-over-year decrease in net sales in the category last quarter, the company said in its earnings report. Overall, Kellanova posted an 8% increase in organic net sales in 2023 compared to the prior year.

Editor’s note: This story was updated with comments from Kellanova.

This story was originally published on Food Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Food Dive newsletter.