U.S. Highway 25 bridge over the French Broad River, between Newport and Morristown, Tennessee, circa 1940

About this postcard

A white steel truss bridge carries U.S. Highway No. 25 across the French Broad River in East Tennessee, with concrete piers rising from the blue water and green pasture and wooded hills beyond. The French Broad is one of the oldest rivers in North America, flowing northwest from the Blue Ridge through Asheville, North Carolina, into East Tennessee, where it joins the Holston to form the Tennessee River near Knoxville. The highway corridor between Newport and Morristown served the farming communities of Cocke, Hamblen and Jefferson counties, and the card's linen-era coloring suggests a mid-20th-century view of that route.