I posted this topic earlier and it turns out I was wrong. Mark said he thought the Dwarf was at the corner of Merchants and Clinton Highway. That seemed wrong to me because that building looks nothing like the postcard. A reader on the Swank Forums did the research and it turns out that is one of the locations. It has been very heavily renovated!
Before
Here is the building now.
The poster also gave me an address for the other Dwarf Restaurant on Clinton Highway and a look at Google maps and I knew it was correct. I also recalled the buildings, as I pass the daily and it was all coming together. The address I had on the postcard was just plain wrong and sent me on a wild goose chase.
Here you see on the left, the Dwarf building and right of center, the Tate Motel office building and the cleared lot where the motel rooms were. Luckily, Google maps uses older images so this is pre-junk yard.
Here is the best image showing the two buildings in their prime. This is in the mid-1950s and it appears the Tate did not have the office building yet. You gotta love the sign!
Why a dwarf? It predates that Travelocity thing by a few decades.
Here is a later image of the Tate Motel and it looks like the restaurant is no longer the Dwarf. Also note the office building is there.
And here is a postcard of just the Tate Motel with no office. Look at the size of the trees to see this is an early image.
Here is a very early linen card. The roof sign attracted barn-stormers.
“Chicken in the basket” is a take off of the popular “Chicken in the Rough.”
Here it is today. The Dwarf and the Tate. I didn’t bother (or dare) poke around for remnants of the past. Not much to find I am sure and they would not welcome me.
swanky – i really dig your urban archaeology efforts. are you a member of society for commercial archaeology? you should be, it is totally in line with what you look for. their site is http://www.sca-roadside.org/
Cool. I emailed them for some info. My goal is to turn my collections into websites. I started collecting Knoxville postcards and now I mainly search Ebay for new places and images. I am trying to document these things while they are still here and get a bit of history. It is a huge task. Just in little ol’ Knoxville there are maybe 1000 postcards to document. I’d love to have the time and resources to branch out to other cities. It’s just too much work when I am nowhere near done with this town!
Exquisite. Have not seen these images in years and what a refreshing visit to recall these buildlings from my childhood (and I am not THAT old)!! Excellent and exciting info. I was at a postcard show last year and saw the lovely old Country Squire Motel….should be shot for not buying it but oh well there was that one, probably others. ….excellent signage and the overall was done in tasteful and highly unusual for the time stark black and stark white. Very suave very tasteful for at the time rural field-laden Kingston Pike. :) Great work Swanky!
I am one of the daughters of John B and Marguerite Sparks, owners of the Dwarf Restaurants. I would be pleased to communicate with anyone interested in these family restaurants of days gone by. I have many fond memories of my fellow workers, customers and family members there. Please let me know anything you’d like to learn more about. Sadly my father passed away in 1988. My mother and her 4 daughters are all still in Tennessee, most of them around Maryville, TN, home of one of the several Dwarf restaurants our father and mother owned and operated around the Knoxville area from the 50’s and into the early 80’s.
Charlene,
Hey this is Misty your mom’s housekeeper….my question is where was the dwarf located in Gatlinburg? I love reading all about the restaurants and why the name…the dwarf….that’s a cute story! Thank you for allowing momma to be part of my life at my new job! Shes the sweetest ever!!!!!
Hi Charlene! I’m wondering if you know anything about Frank and Jessie Kathryn Sparks? From an obituary that I read, they helped managed the Dwarf Restaurants in Knoxville and Gatlinburg? Thank you for any information that you might have.
I’m a niece of Frank and Kathryn (sp?) Of course they have both passed. Uncle Frank passed on before my aunt, but she lived to a nice old age. They also lived in Powell for part of their life, had a home fire at one point that took the life of their beloved little dog..do you by any chance remember that?
Hi Linda! Through Ancestry.com I’ve found that Kathryn was my grandmother on my mother’s side. My mom was adopted but she had her original birth certificate that showed Kathryn’s name and city where she was from. Through my research, I found Kathryn’s family and that she married Frank and lived and died in Knoxville, TN. I was able to connect with Frank’s previous wife’s children and they were able to give me some pics of Kathryn. She was involved in their lives and they seemed to like her very much. I don’t think Kathryn ever had any other children besides my mom that she gave up in 1929. If you have any information in that regard, I would really appreciate it. I’m just sorry that my mom, Joan (who Kathryn named Phyllis Marie Johnson) didn’t live long enough to find her birth mother. She searched for her several times, in the days before computers, internet and Ancestry.com, but was unsuccessful. Thank you for reaching out to answer my question and again, any help you can give me about Kathryn and Frank would be greatly appreciated.
Charlene,
The first thing I want to know is, why the name? Did it have a relation to Snow White or what?
Daddy had purchased a restaurant in Oak Ridge and had a contest offering a monetary prize to the person who’s name he chose for the name of the restaurant. The exterior of the restaurant was white. The person winning the contest wanted the restaurant to be called The Snow White because the place was white and sparkly clean. After the Snow White Daddy purchased other places and started calling them the Dwarf restaurants. He once told me he had hoped to have 7 Dwarf restaurants. He actually had 5; the one on Western Ave, 2 on Clinton Highway, one in Maryville, TN, and one in Gatlinburg. He had 3 other restaurants —-but they were not called the Dwarf. There was an Orange Julius in Fountain City, a restaurnat on Kingston Pike and another place on 411 hwy in Maryville. Daddy was renting these business and the contract would not let him change the names. Daddy never served any alcohol in his places of business. They were “family” restaurants offering home cooked meats and veggies and desserts. The restauarants were known for Daddy’s wonderful biscuits and chicken and dumplings. Many of the vegetables served were grown on our farm in Powell, TN and later on the farm in Friendsville, TN. He had customers from all over the US that returned annually when on vacation. Daddy always was hands on and made it a point to work his way around the dining rooms and talk to customers and learn who they were and where they were from. His customers loved him and his cooking. Most of the staff at the restaurants were family and friends. Many of my friends worked and paid their way in college with wages earned at the Dwarfs, including my husband-a UT graduate.
My dad worked at the Snow White in Oak Ridge as a grill cook. He went on to obtain his PhD and become a published author many times over, but he always remembered those days at the Snow White most fondly, I believe. Anyone remember a cook named Doyle?? :)
I have 2 coffee cups from the Snow White and 2 bowls from the Dwarf.
We were returning to Ohio from Florida around 1966.
We stopped at the Dwarf and found it an unforgettable experience.