Appalachian heritage & history of the Tri-Cities

A deep-rooted corner of Appalachia

The Tri-Cities sit in one of the most history-dense corners of Appalachia, where the layers pile up on top of each other. This is the ground where frontier settlers wrote one of the earliest majority-rule governments west of the mountains in 1772; where the Overmountain Men mustered in 1780 before turning the tide of the Revolution at Kings Mountain; and where, in 1927, a record producer set up a microphone in downtown Bristol and caught what's been called the “Big Bang of country music.” You can stand in Tennessee's oldest town, hear a story told the old way at the world's foremost storytelling festival, and look five million years into the past — all within an easy drive.

The birthplace of country music

In late July and early August 1927, producer Ralph Peer of the Victor Talking Machine Company set up in downtown Bristol and recorded what became known as the 1927 Bristol Sessions — the commercial recording debuts of both the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, and the moment Congress would later (in 1998) formally recognize as making Bristol the “Birthplace of Country Music.” The Smithsonian-affiliated Birthplace of Country Music Museum tells that story on the Virginia side of State Street, and runs Radio Bristol and its revived Farm and Fun Time show from inside.

The heritage is still played, not just displayed. Each September, downtown Bristol fills for the Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion. And out in Hiltons, Virginia, the Carter Family Fold has hosted old-time and bluegrass on the Carter homeplace every Saturday night (February through November) since 1979 — it's where Johnny Cash gave his last public concert, in 2003.

Tennessee's oldest town, and the storytelling capital

Jonesborough is the oldest town in Tennessee — chartered by North Carolina in 1779 (Tennessee didn't yet exist) and laid out the next year, later the first capital of the short-lived State of Franklin. Its Main Street is a remarkably intact historic district anchored by the 1797 Chester Inn, the oldest building on the street.

Jonesborough is also, by reputation, the storytelling capital of the world. The International Storytelling Center sits on Main Street and produces the National Storytelling Festival, held the first full weekend of every October since 1973 — the event that launched the modern storytelling revival in America.

Frontier and Revolution

Just outside Elizabethton, Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park marks several turning points on the same stretch of the Watauga River. The Watauga Association (1772) formed one of the first written, majority-rule governments by American colonists west of the Appalachians; the 1775 Transylvania Purchase negotiated here opened millions of acres of Cherokee land and Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road; and on September 25, 1780 the Overmountain Men mustered here before marching to the Battle of Kings Mountain. The park's summer outdoor drama, Liberty! The Saga of Sycamore Shoals, plays out the story at the reconstructed Fort Watauga.

Nearby, Rocky Mount in Piney Flats served as the seat of the Southwest Territory from 1790 to 1792 under territorial governor William Blount, and interprets frontier life today as a living-history farm. In Johnson City, Tipton-Haynes State Historic Site centers on a 1784 house that saw the only armed skirmish of the State of Franklin dispute in 1788. The route the Overmountain Men took is now the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail, with its northern start at the Abingdon Muster Grounds in Virginia.

Rails, a planned city, and deep time

The railroad built this region's modern economy. The Tweetsie Trail, the ten-mile rail-trail between Johnson City and Elizabethton, follows the old narrow-gauge bed of the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad — the “Tweetsie,” named for the sound of its steam whistle. (It's a Tennessee rail-trail, not to be confused with the Tweetsie Railroad theme park over in North Carolina.) Down in Erwin, the Clinchfield Railroad made the town its headquarters, and Kingsport was built from scratch in 1917 as the “Model City,” a professionally planned industrial town designed by John Nolen around the Eastman works.

For the deepest history of all, the Gray Fossil Site — discovered by a road crew in 2000 and run by ETSU — is an Early Pliocene fossil bed roughly five million years old, where tapirs, a new species of red panda, rhinos and a near-complete mastodon have come out of the ground. You can see the active dig at the adjoining Hands On! Discovery Center.