Category: History
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Sullivan County, North Carolina
I took a trip down memory lane this weekend to my grandmother’s birthplace, McPheeter’s Bend, just across the Holston River from Church Hill in Hawkins County, Tennessee. We used to call it ‘the country’ when I was growing up, but it’s literally 10 minutes from Allandale Mansion on the western border of Kingsport. I saw…
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“Horse Creek Pike” & “Long Island Drive”
As the modern, model city of Kingsport evolved after 1917, old roads and geographic names were replaced with new ones. My friend Jill Riggs-Rich who lives on ancestral land off Sullivan Gardens Parkway (formerly Horse Creek Pike) shared that her “grandparents would leave Horse Creek in a wagon, travel down to where Riverfront Seafood is…
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The story of “Warpath, Tenn.” & Litz Manor
Kingsport is a tale of two cities — the original riverport incorporated in 1822 and the planned, model city incorporated in 1917. The two did not become one until 1963. The model city limits were originally confined to what is today Eastman Road on the east and Riverside Avenue on the west. The southern limit…
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The time Broad Street shrank.
Yesterday’s post explained the evolution of Sevier Avenue and noted that Broad Street is the break point for east-west demarcation in Kingsport. A current firefighter astutely observed that the streets in Nelsontown along today’s Gibson Mill Road have east-west monikers–Gibson Street, Millpond Street, and Windsor Street–and asked if Broad Street used to extend to Stone…
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The mystery of Sevier Avenue
At nearly 3 miles long, Sevier Avenue is one of the most important crosstown connectors in Kingsport. But it wasn’t always so. It was built in three separate sections with three separate names that weren’t merged until 1953. It’s standard practice that all east-west streets use Broad Street as the break point (i.e., East Center/West…
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Embracing the Douglass legacy long after segregation
I was researching a project for Downtown Kingsport and came across an article on segregation in schools. Down a rabbit hole I went. Isn’t that how the internet works anyway? My search hit on “Downtown Kingsport churches”, noting they had donated a film to the public library. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a…
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John B. Dennis more than a highway
Kingsporters are familiar with the ‘by-pass’ or highway. Some abbreviate it as the ‘John B’. In fact, another iconic Kingsport name, Pal’s, just opened its newest location at 1345 South John B. Dennis Highway near I-26. He was the brains behind Kingsport. He’s buried here. But he had many other interests across the country which…
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Black History Month: Kingsport tried.
It was 1917. The fledgling city of Kingsport had been incorporated for two months. “Separate but equal” was the prevailing law, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896. The NY-based developers were trying to build a Model City in the rural South. They were heavily influenced by the overcrowded tenements,…
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Lowe’s on Main Street was a low point in Kingsport’s history
That’s just my opinion, but it seems desperate to allow a modern blue & white striped metal building to be built partially obstructing the historic Train Station. That’s what it looked like in 1970 when I was growing up. Come to think of it, we didn’t go to Main Street much. I remember my mom…
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Of Dentists, Indian Highland, & Silver Lake
My daughter is about to complete her periodontics residency. She recently asked if she should buy a starter property, then keep it as a rental once she grows out of it. My first thought (perhaps unfairly) was that “dentists don’t do that.” They’re more conservative, predictable, compliant, and to some degree risk averse. Then I…
Kingsport Spirit 