A sign in middle Tennessee — that’s what they call it — that has always fascinated. Maybe it is the sub-sign: American Hositality. None of that foreigny stuff.

James K. Polk was a son of North Carolina. His family moved to Tennessee when he was eight. He’d become a lawyer, serve in the state legislature, Congress as Speaker of the House and later as governor of Tennessee. Despite all of that he was launched to the White House in a bit of obscurity.

People don’t remember Polk as well as they should. Consistently ranking in the top 15 of presidents, if you go in for that sort of thing, he expanded executive power, got the US involved in the unfortunate Mexico-American War and added all of the American west to the map - increasing territory by about a third. He was the first transcontinental president, the one with the oldest surviving, still-in-office presidential portraits. He also perhaps sped up the long inevitable fight over slavery, based on his stance on the peculiar institution in territories. That lead to the Compromise of 1850 and that led to the war.

He defeated Henry Clay to gain the presidency, largely on the strength of his stance if admitting Texas to the union.

Henry Clay has a motel, an inn and an old apartment building named after him.

The Polk Motel was recently in the news because of a meth lab explosion in one of their rooms. Three men, who all look like tweakers, were charged.