Tag: photography
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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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Sullivan 250 | Before Countyhood: How Order Came to the Holston Valley
Fourth in a 12-part monthly series to commemorate Sullivan County’s role in the 250th birthday of the United States of America April 2026 | 4 of 12 Even as violence flared in the Holston Valley during the Revolutionary era, settlers made a choice that would shape the region’s long-term character: they insisted on order. Long before…
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Sullivan 250 | July 1776 at Island Flats: When Independence Reached the Holston
Third in a 12-part monthly series to commemorate Sullivan County’s role in the 250th birthday of the United States of America March 2026 | 3 of 12 In July 1776, independence was declared in Philadelphia. Along the Holston River near Island Flats, it arrived as a crisis. The Battle of Island Flats, also called the Battle…
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Where Tennessee Begins
A friend recently observed that the Holston River just upstream of Kingsport cuts across the ridges, carving a circuitous channel and steep bluffs. You can see exactly what he means as you cross the I-81 bridge and look down at the sheer rock faces dropping into the water. But just a few bends later, the…
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Tennessee in 10 Minutes
I was recently talking with colleagues about the early development of modern Tennessee and why the first counties were incorporated in two pockets: East Tennessee along the upper Tennessee Valley and Middle Tennessee along the Cumberland River basin, initially leapfrogging Southeast Tennessee and the Cumberland Plateau. I couldn’t find a succinct description, so I decided…
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Different by Design: Why Downtown Kingsport Streets Feel Safer
Second in a Series Safety isn’t just about statistics. It’s also about how a place feels when you walk its downtown streets, drive its roads, or raise your family there. Kingsport’s long history of thoughtful planning has created a city that feels safe by design, not just by numbers. When Kingsport was incorporated in 1917,…
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Kingsport might have been named Peltier or Horace
Today, we tend to skip the first 156 years and focus on Kingsport as the 1917 Model City with landmarks like Church Circle, Broad Street, and the Train Station. But early developers only repurposed the name of a previously incorporated town, an actual port on the river that had lost its charter after the Civil…
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Kingsport’s Potential Noted…in 1876
Today we think of Kingsport as the Model City incorporated in 1917. But there was a previous town incorporated in 1822 that we often overlook in history. It’s interesting to see newspaper articles published two generations before Northern industrialists arrived on the scene to build the city we know today. The time period was 1876–slightly…
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Kingsport’s Rising Popularity: 637 New Families in a Year
Over the past year, Kingsport has attracted 637 new families from 45 different states, averaging roughly 2.6 out‐of‐region arrivals per workday. In contrast, May 2025 alone saw 78 families move here from 27 states—an equivalent of about 3.7 families per workday. Of those 78, just 33 were home purchases (accounting for nearly $18 million in…
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Kingsport Grows, Nashville Suburbs Surge
Kingsport’s population is now officially 57,109, up from 55,510 in 2020 according to the Census Bureau’s newly released 2024 population estimates for cities over 20,000. Kingsport led the Tri-Cities in year-over-year growth at 0.6%, compared to 0.3% for Johnson City and 0.1% for Bristol. Remember when we were racing to hit 50,000—mostly through annexation? That…
Kingsport Spirit 