Tag: History
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The Mixed Messages of Appalachia
We took the granddaughters to see Toy Story 5 at Hilton Head this week. As we were watching the opening ads, a Mountain Dew trailer depicting a fictitious scene from Tennessee in 1948 popped up on the big screen. A theatre full of people saw a ‘hoedown’ with stereotypical images of Appalachia–bibbed overalls, banjos, and…
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Son, Never Forget
Some of my fondest childhood memories revolve around Kingsport’s Independence Day parade. We lived one block from the parade route. I remember the rush of anticipation when the American flags started going up on the light poles. By dawn’s early light on the Fourth of July, I was as excited as a kid on Christmas…
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River Crossings and the Story of Pactolus
Recently, the Kingsport Times-News reported that the Sullivan County Commission deliberated acceptance of grant funding to upgrade the swinging bridge over the Holston River in Bluff City. The article reminded me that development in a county like Sullivan, which is divided by the Holston River, has always been shaped by river crossings. First came fords…
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What IRS Migration Data Says About Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia
Every year, the Internal Revenue Service releases migration data based on address changes reported on individual income tax returns. It is not perfect. It does not count every person, and it should not be confused with Census population estimates. But it is one of the best tools available for understanding where tax-filing households are moving…
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What Do Charlotte & Kingsport Have In Common?
Recently, a friend who lives in Kingsport’s Fairacres visited Charlotte and sent me a photograph of a sign from a walkabout she took in Historic Independence Park. She knew right away, when she saw the name John Nolen, that I would be interested. Nolen was Kingsport’s designer, too. The sign noted that Independence Park was…
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Sullivan 250 | 1780: When the War Passed Through Sullivan County
Sixth in a 12-part monthly series to commemorate Sullivan County’s role in the 250th birthday of the United States of America June 2026 | 6 of 12 By 1780, the Revolutionary War had reached the frontier in force. For the Overmountain settlements, the struggle shifted from simply holding on to taking action. The implications went far…
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Long (Island) Before Kingsport
I found a reference — new to me, at least — during a recent visit to the East Tennessee History Museum in Knoxville. The exhibit (on display through February 14, 2027) is “Lines Were Drawn: The Treaty of Holston and Its Legacy,” and one map stopped me in my tracks. It showed Long Island of…
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Kingsport Is Not Just a Place to Work. It Is a Place to Live.
For generations, Kingsport has been known as an industrial city. This is a place built by blue-collar workers, managers, supervisors, engineers, executives, and working families — people who changed clothes before and after work, carried lunch boxes, worked rotating shifts, parked at plant gates, punched time clocks, and helped make products that reached far beyond…
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Sullivan 250 | The Holston River: From Long Island to the Future Capital
Fifth in a 12-part monthly series to commemorate Sullivan County’s role in the 250th birthday of the United States of America May 2026 | 5 of 12 Rivers functioned much like an early version of our modern interstate system, especially when they were navigable. Long Island (later King’s Port) in Sullivan County was considered the head…
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Blair Court
“Blair Court” is one of the new streets in Kingsport’s Brickyard Village, named after Blair & Company. But who were they? To answer that, we have to begin not in Kingsport, but in New York City — in the world of late 19th- and early 20th-century finance, when Wall Street banking houses helped build railroads,…
Kingsport Spirit 