Long forgotten: the Pinewood Motor Court, Hwy. U.S. 80, Vicksburg

The Pinewood Motor Court was located east of Vicksburg on historic US 80, formerly the Dixie Overland Highway. The restaurant and motel have been closed since 1979.

The art moderne building was a restaurant. A 1950s post card labeled it as Cassino's Pinewood Grill."

The sign must have been impressive in its day, blazing with incandescent lights. I wonder if they flashed in a pattern in the direction of the arrow? Unfortunately, the "Pinewood" and "Grill" signs are gone.

When I moved to Vicksburg, the restaurant was still intact, but some of the motel units had been semi-deconstructed. The roofs were off, and you could see the cheerful pink tiles of the showers and lavatories.

In the early 1980s, an office in the middle of the parking lot was still intact.

The attendant in the office could survey the motel units and ensure that proper morals were maintained (or that no African Americans tried to check in).

Here are two samples of the same scene, one color and the other monochrome. Which tells the story better? These are scans of 4×5" Fujichrome 50 and Kodak Tri-X film from a Tachihara camera.

Preservation Mississippi wrote about the Pinewood in 2014. Read some of the comments for background information. A 2005 Vicksburg Post article summarized some of the history:

“My mother and father bought the first few acres in 1939,” said Gay Strong, who owns the Pinewood property on U.S. 80.  

At that time, U.S. 80 was the main all-weather, east-west highway from Savannah, Ga., to San Diego. When Richard and Mary Jo Cassino Strong first bought the land from the Dees family, a small grocery occupied the property. 

“Dad named it the Parkway Inn,” Strong said. 

Though busy before, the highway really became heavily traveled during World War II with convoys of military trucks rumbling through. After the war, the traffic scarcely diminished as more people bought automobiles and personal travel took off. In 1940 and 1941, the Strongs built the first eight motel units on the east end of the property adjacent to the building that housed the restaurant. In the 1950s, they built the 14 units on the west end of the property. 

“The restaurant was originally called the Pinewood Gardens,” Strong said. “I guess because we had so many flowers planted around it.” 

Later the popular eatery was called the Pinewood Grill. The original restaurant building burned in 1950. 

Strong said Mike Guido and Marie Angelo operated the restaurant after the Strongs, and Gay Strong’s uncle Frank Cassino took it over after the 1953 tornado destroyed his Vicksburg Candy Co. Cassino moved his restaurant to Openwood and Jackson street in the 1960s. 

“When we first started it, I guess you would call it a family affair,” Strong said. “It was Mama and Daddy and me.” She said the cooks were from the U.S. Army Corps of  Engineers fleet. 

“We had fresh eggs. We grew our own vegetables,” she said. The intestate highways began being built in this area in the late ’50s and early ’60s, and that wrote the death warrants for the Pinewood and many other motels and restaurants along the old U.S. highway system. 

By the 1970s, the Strongs could see the end coming. They tried to stave it off by renting the old motel rooms, which had kitchens, as efficiency apartments, to construction workers by the week and month. The end finally came and they closed the Pinewood in late 1979.

The photographs above are from 35mm Kodachrome 25 film, Fujichrome 50 in 4×5" size, and Kodak Tri-X 400.