Kingston Pike

Kingston Pike is a highway in Knox County, Tennessee, United States, that connects Downtown Knoxville with West Knoxville, Farragut, and other communities in the western part of the county. The road follows a merged stretch of U.S. Route 70 and U.S. Route 11. From its initial construction in the 1790s until the development of the Interstate Highway System in the 1960s, Kingston Pike was the main traffic artery in western Knox County, and an important section of several cross-country highways. The road is now a major commercial corridor, containing hundreds of stores, restaurants, and other retail establishments.

The old Kingston road was originally built in the 1790s to connect Knoxville with Fort Southwest Point at what is now Kingston. During the Civil War, Confederate and Union forces fought several skirmishes along the Kingston road as they struggled for control of Knoxville. The Kingston Turnpike Company was chartered in 1866 to improve the Kingston road, and by 1893 had extended the improved road to the county line. From the 1920s into the 1950s, Kingston Pike was a major stopover for tourists traveling along the Dixie and Lee highways, which intersected at Kingston Pike.

Starting with the completion of West Town Mall in 1970, Kingston Pike developed into Knoxville's largest retail corridor. Historian Jack Neely once wrote, "If suburban sprawl had a local name, it would be Kingston Pike." The road is now home to "an enclosed shopping mall, a big-box mall, over 100 strip malls, 100 chain restaurants," and "more acreage of asphalt surface parking than any other street in the Knoxville MSA."