Category: History
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Kingsport’s Bain vs. Batman’s Bane
If you know anything about Batman, you know that Bane is a villain. But Kingsport’s Bain is one of the good guys. I’m always fascinated to learn the names of the people who built this town from scratch, names that were otherwise unfamiliar to me and perhaps lost to time. They may not have been…
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Ross N. Robinson
Generations of Kingsport eastside students have grown up singing, “Let’s give a cheer to RNR, to the colors white and blue”. As a John Sevier alumnus, RNR’s archrival, I never gave much thought to the man behind the school’s name. In my formative years, RNR might as well have been in a neighboring city. The…
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The Little Girl of Rotherwood Mansion
Virgealia “Jill” Denny Looney Ellis was a leap year baby in 1928. Since 2024 is a leap year, I wanted to honor her. Mrs. Ellis was the counselor for generations of students at both Douglass High School (before integration) and Dobyns-Bennett High School (after integration), including me. She made a lasting impression, and I was…
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The Bachman Legacy: How a Kingsport son became Chattanooga’s ‘First Citizen’
The Brainerd Mission is featured on the cover of this month’s Tennessee Historical Quarterly magazine, published by the Tennessee Historical Society. So, how does this relate to Kingsport? Read on. The article is based on the remembrances of Chattanooga historian Anne Bachman Hyde (1868-1959) as told to her by her father, Jonathan Waverly Bachman. A…
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Catalyzing Kingsport: Strategic Responses to Demographic Shifts
Reflecting on the past year prompts us to delve into the underlying rationale behind the inception of the Move To Kingsport program, which began 24 years ago, predating the seismic shifts caused by the pandemic-driven “Great Relocation”. It was a proactive response by community leaders who foresaw our region grappling with a recurring issue seen…
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Rivers of Legacy: Tracing Tennessee’s Origins from Kingsport to Nashville
Recently, my son was traveling from Kingsport to Nashville for a business trip. To break up the monotony from time-to-time, he would call and say, “I just pulled off at this exit, tell me about <insert city name>.” In this case, it was Carthage, Tennessee. I explained that Carthage was located on the Cumberland River…
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When Ridgefields & Fort Robinson were county neighborhoods
There’s an old adage about each generation carrying the baton for one leg of the race before handing off to the next generation to carry it for the next leg. And once we do, future generations may not remember how hard it was to move the needle in a positive direction. It’s human nature to…
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Rotary Club of Kingsport marks a century of service
On December 11, 1923, the Kingsport Times made a historic gesture by dedicating its entire front page to honor the charter celebration of the Rotary Club of Kingsport. Among the founding members, J. Fred Johnson stands out as the visionary behind the term, “Kingsport Spirit”. Other charter members included Frank Cloud, who held the distinction…
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1926 State of the City
Yesterday, Kingsport City Manager Chris McCartt gave the annual State of the City address. It’s an exhausting task to put it together–I speak from experience. It forces us to pause from our daily grind and reflect on our community’s progress, challenges, and vision. I always leave energized, optimistic, and grateful. But I’m also empathetic to…
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The First 11W “Super-Highway” Wasn’t Stone Drive
My first recollection of the term “super-highway” was in reference to Stone Drive in the early 1960s. But did you know that Kingsport’s first “super-highway” was built at least 20 years earlier? Kingsport was incorporated in 1917 as a compact, walkable town. The founders wanted to create a model city with a variety of housing…
Kingsport Spirit 