When the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike (Interstate 95)was built parallel to Jefferson Davis Highway, the once-robust travel along the corridor and what comes with it – restaurants, hotels, cabins, dance halls, swimming lakes and a few hoochy-coochy joints – was stolen by the faster more convenient roadway.
Gradually, one by one, the attractions and service businesses along the Pike (as it was affectionally known) became strapped for money. The tourist courts were turned into weekly rental but by the late 1990s – early 2000s the ambience of the Pike had been bulldozed under.
The Dutch Gap Tourist Court was located at the southeast corner of Osborne Road and Jefferson Davis Highway. In Tim O’Gorman’s “Spending a Night on the Pike,” O’Gorman describes the Dutch Gap Tourist Court as having rooms for 35 guests in pleasant brick cottages finished with knotty pine, and furnished in maple.
All rooms had a bath, as noted in the 1946 Duncan Hines’ Lodge for the Night.
Dutch Gap Tourist Court was demolished in 2003 and is now the site of a Wawa convenience store.
