Hear ye: U.S. Route 70 deserves some respect

Route 66 shouldn’t get to have all the fun.

“Scenic 70” deserves some love as well, according to Marvin Bullock, who is on a mission to see that U.S. Route 70 gets some recognition as it observes its 100-year anniversary in 2026.

 

Bullock’s “project” was first reported by Towndock.net, an online newsletter based in Oriental, N.C.

Bullock is a former resident of this Pamlico County community where the Neuse River becomes the Pamlico Sound. He retired in 2023 as president of the Sparta-White County Chamber of Commerce in Sparta, Tenn.

Sparta is a small city with about 4,975 residents located on Route 70 about midway between the major metropolitan areas of Knoxville and Nashville.

Traveling the full length of Route 70, about 2,385 miles from the village of Atlantic in Carteret County to Globe, Ariz., has been on Bullock’s bucket list for a long time. 

But he’s also taken an interest in serving as an ambassador to promote “the tourism, revitalization and preservation of Route 70” during the highway’s centennial year.

Bullock said he would like to see the “U.S. government recognize the uniqueness of one of the first paved highways” from the East Coast into the Great American Southwest.

U.S. Route 70 was once dubbed “The Hospitality Route to Disneyland” by the Bishop Printing & Litho Co. of Portales, N.M.

In the mid-1950s, the company published and distributed a stylized “coast-to-coast map postcard” that highlighted the highway as a “scenic, all-paved route from North Carolina to California.” Indeed, that was the case early on in the highway’s history.

Bishop Printing & Litho discontinued operation in the late 1980s. Portales is a city of about 11,660 people situated on Route 70, about 30 miles from Texico and the Texas border.

“By getting chambers of commerce along the route together, we can start lobbying to specifically advertise Route 70 as ‘Scenic 70,’” Bullock said. 

“Route 66 almost vanished more than once. Now, it’s a destination for people to go…just to travel on Route 66.”

“Route 70 is already well known amongst motorcycle and bicycle enthusiasts as the preferred transcontinental highway,” Bullock said.

Once travelers arrive in Sparta, Tenn., Bullock suggests they pull off the highway and see the sights.

Sparta claims to be “Bluegrass USA,” as the hometown of several bluegrass music legends. 

The most notable was Lester Raymond Flatt, a vocalist, guitarist and mandolinist. 

He was best known for his collaboration with banjo picker Earl Scruggs of Flint Hill in Cleveland County, N.C.

 

Performing as Flatt and Scruggs, the duo was joined by the Foggy Mountain Boys, resulting in one of the most successful bands in bluegrass music history, spanning approximately 20 years.

Bluegrass fiddler Benny Edward Martin also grew up in Sparta. He performed for a time with Flatt and Scruggs and is credited with inventing the eight-string fiddle. Nicknamed “the Big Tiger,” Martin typified “country stompin’” music, with his enthusiastic fiddling while dancing around on stage.

 

Other members of Sparta’s Bluegrass Hall of Fame are Bill Jones, John Henry Demps, Blake Williams and Josh Swift.

White County offers more caves, waterfalls and scenic overlooks per square mile than anywhere else in the United States. 

The chamber recommends that everyone journey about 12 miles northwest of Sparta to visit the spectacular Burgess Falls on the Falling Water River, named for the first settler in these parts, Tom Burgess. The Burgess family cut lumber and operated a grist mill above the falls.

Burgess Falls is most noted for its scenic value as the Falling Water River drops nearly 250 feet over three waterfalls. The last of these falls is the most spectacular and begins where the water plunges more than 130 feet into a gorge below. Protruding rocks halfway down break the curtain of water and spread a mist around the base of the falls.

 

With more than 100 miles of paddleable river water, including “world-class whitewater and serene flat water,” White County is also an “adventure tourism destination.”

 

“Scenic 70” just may catch on…adding a contemporary twist to the highway’s early marketing thrust. 

The U.S. Highway 70 Association began promoting the road in 1951 as “America’s Treasure Trail.”