Sweetwater,TN ?
 

Can anyone tell about Sweetwater, TN ???

Did you throw a dart at the map and miss Great Smoky Mountains National Park?
Is there something or someone worth seeing there?

The Lost Sea is there. I grew up in East Tennessee and that's the only reason we ever went. It looks like they have a nice web site that's trying to get tourists in, so maybe they're trying to be one of those charming small towns people ask about.

http://www.thelostsea.com/
http://www.visitsweetwater.com/

Do you have any specific questions, rollinon?

Bradley's BBQ is great and so is The Dinner Bell restaurant.
I would recommend going to The Lost Sea. There isn't alot to do there and I too would check out The Great Smoky Mountains. We just returned and had a wonderful trip.

The name has a nice ring to it?

I haven't driven through there for many years, but we used to drive through there fairly often between Ohio and Florida. Sweetwater was the "joke" of the trip due to the smell from the paper or pulp mills there. You could smell it from about 10 miles off and you were aware of the smell for about 10 miles beyond it. Yes, we once saw the Lost Sea -- kind of neat. But I remember staying at a motel along the interstate there and not being able to get that smell out of my head for a day or two.
Has that changed?

Neo, my dad drives that route regularly and I just asked him. He said it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be (he just drove it yesterday). He might just be acclimated, though. ;)

I think it became a joke to us because of the name. With THAT smell, the place should have been named anything but SWEETwater!

Neo I am on the floor laughing. Last year huuby and I were driving around the Danridge,TN area and we starting smelling that smell and we blamed each other then we looked up and it was the Bush's Baked Beans factory. I will never forget how much we laughed;)

Just to be clear, now, most of Tennessee smells just fine. ;)

Neo, my college friends who came to visit one summer had that same reaction!

As tomfuller mentioned, GSMNP is not too far away, a 1 1/2 to 2 hr. drive. Chattanooga is about an hour drive.

We live 45 minutes to an hour away. The Lost Sea is open we took friend and their 2 kids there last summer. It was both fun and interesting. There was a local glass blower there making ornaments and decorations.

There is also Sweetwater Valley cheese - that makes about 15 -20 flavors and varieties - all of the ones we have tried on site were great.

Also not very far away in Athens you can take a tour of the Mayfield dairy plant and purchase ice cream at a highly discounted price by the scoop at the end. The tour is free but I believe the tours are only Mon-Fri and the last tour ends around 2:30 or 3:00 pm.