Kingsport Spirit

Sometimes you stumble across a fun fact that’s just too interesting not to share. While browsing Google Earth recently, I noticed something surprising: the Vulcan Materials quarry in Kingsport. It’s less than half a mile from West Stone Drive—as the crow flies—tucked behind Lowe’s and Walmart. Thousands of cars pass by every day without realizing it’s there. And why would they? The quarry is hidden behind wooded knolls, with tightly secured access and no public view.

If you’ve ever caught a baseball game at Hunter Wright Stadium, you’ve been closer to the quarry than you might think. Its massive wall sits just about 1,275 feet beyond the first base line. Not to worry, that’s more than twice the distance of the longest verified home run in professional baseball history—582 feet by Joey Meyer at Denver’s Mile High Stadium in 1987.

But here’s what really caught my attention. Using Google Earth, I measured the quarry’s depth and came up with an incredible 386 feet. That’s deeper than the tallest building in East Tennessee is tall. The First Horizon Bank building in downtown Knoxville stands at 327 feet—or 27 stories high. The difference is the quarry goes down instead of up, making its scale even easier to overlook.

Now, don’t get me wrong—this isn’t a complaint about the quarry. Not at all.

In fact, it’s a piece of Kingsport’s history. The quarry’s roots go back to the early 1920s when Harvey Brooks—founder of Citizens Supply and builder of Allandale Mansion—started the Brooks Sand and Gravel Company. Citizens Supply, located at Main and Cherokee, provided the materials that literally built Kingsport. The company remained independent until 1958, when it merged with Vulcan Materials Company. Today, the Kingsport quarry, officially known as Plant No. 525, is part of Vulcan’s Midsouth Division. It continues to supply vital construction materials like crushed stone, sand, and gravel for projects throughout the region.

Sometimes a simple curiosity leads you to discover something hiding in plain sight—right in your own backyard. The Vulcan Materials quarry is one of those places. Surrounded by stores, parks, and neighborhoods, it remains mostly unseen. Yet its 386-foot depth tells a powerful story. While the tallest buildings reach for the sky, this landmark carves into the earth—quietly and steadily helping to build the community above it.