Tag: travel
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Great Mass Meeting of Tennesseans and Virginians at Kingsport
FORTY THOUSAND PERSONS PRESENT—ENTHUSIASM OF THE DEMOCRACY—EAST TENNESSEE SAFE FOR POLK AND DALLAS I enjoy digging into old newspaper articles, and this snippet from the 1844 Nashville Union is a real treasure. We often assume Kingsport only began in 1917, but for 156 years before that it was a bustling river port—the highest navigable point…
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The First Steamboat at Kingsport
Transcribed by AI from the 1847 Knoxville Register (14 years prior to the Civil War) “To the CASSANDRA, owned by the Messrs. Deerys & Churchwell, and commanded by Capt. Chapman, belongs the honor of having first succeeded in reaching Kingsport, the highest point on the Holston by many miles to which a steamboat has ever…
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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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From Magic to Momentum: Playing the Long Game in Kingsport
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the natural life cycle of a city—of any built environment really. When you are a city manager, the challenges you face are based on when you arrive on the scene during that life cycle. If it’s a brand-new city, you have a clean slate. But there’s no infrastructure. So you…
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Both Sides of the Blue Ridge: How Mid-Sized Cities Are Powering the Region’s Housing Market
We looked at recent home sales across all counties in East Tennessee and Western North Carolina—on both sides of the Blue Ridge. Why? Because these areas share many of the same traits. They’re clustered in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, the highest peaks in Eastern North America. The communities in this region are…
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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…
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Remembering Kingsberry: Kingsport’s Prefab Legacy
Did you know that one of Kingsport’s most desirable neighborhoods is made up of prefabricated homes? Don’t let the word prefabricated fool you. It simply means the home’s components were precision-cut in regional Boise Cascade factories and then shipped to the building site. From there, local builders assembled the houses on-site. Think of it like…
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Commuting: What Kingsport’s Traffic Patterns Say About Us
We hear a lot about the growing traffic on I-26. In a perfect world, maybe we’d all live in the same city where we work. That would ease congestion, reduce stress, and add hours back to our day. But modern life is rarely that tidy. In households with two working adults, it’s common for each…
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Kingsport: Crossroads of Daniel Boone’s Wilderness Trail
Today, the 250th anniversary of Daniel Boone’s Wilderness Trail was celebrated at Netherland Inn in Kingsport. Sycamore Shoals, in present-day Elizabethton, was the site of the 1775 Transylvania Purchase, where Daniel Boone was hired to blaze a trail through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. While this marked the legal and ceremonial beginning of the Wilderness…
Kingsport Spirit 