Mockingbird Motel
Knoxville, Tennessee – Then and Now
Mockingbird Motel – 3 miles north on Highway 25W
It’s hard to say exactly where the place was, but noticing the high tension power lines in the postcard allowed us to narrow it down to about here.
This looks like the floor of the building and the outline of the foundation.
And this looks like the pole just this side of the sign in the postcard.
My dad and his business partner owned the Mockingbird Motel for a time in the 80s. It was efficiency apartments then. They sold the whole thing to the Claytons and it is now gone. The mobile homes on the property now should pretty much confirm the location.
My grandparents, Vesta and William (Bill) Brittian, owned The Mockingbird during the years this photograph was taken. It’s my family in the picture when they first opened. Mamaw wanted a nice postcard to leave at the ‘office’ and in the rooms. I’m the young child you can see standing at one of the chairs. I recall spending every Sunday there and begging Mamaw and Papaw to build a swimming pool in the very large grassy area that was on the property. That project never took place (lol). Their home sat in the very back of the property and my Papaw had a huge garden as well. Great memories of my childhood! I remember the Tate Motel just down the street and Wallace’s Ice Cream located next to The Mockingbird.