Lawrence,
I have lived all of my short (59) life in Tennessee - I can tell you for certain that very few roads were salted in TN until not too awfully long ago - even then, it was interstate highways for the most part, rural towns usually don't have salt equipment. Large cities like Nashville do have their own, but still on a smaller scale than most northern states. I lived just east of Nashville (but still in the Metro Nashville area) in the 60's until the mid 70's, and non-state-route roads were never salted at all - you just had to wait for the weather to warm up enough to melt the ice/snow (and yes, we used to get decent snows here in the 60's and 70's). My 69 Z was sold new in Nashville, I bought it in '73, and it is still in pretty decent shape for a street car (I drove it back and forth to school in Knoxville, interstate 187 miles one way from my parent's house, for several years, and it's still pretty much rust free in spite of my abuse to it).
Regards,
Steve