Click on map to enlarge

The Tri-Cities of 1839 - Kingsport, Blountsville and Paperville

The Library of Congress website (www.loc.gov) is a treasure trove of digitized material from early maps to historical recordings.

Dig around and you will be amazed at what you uncover.

A few years ago I found this 1839 map of post roads. There weren’t very many roads serving the fledgling Post Office west of the Mississippi in 1839 but upper East Tennessee and southwest Virginia had roads from Kingsport to a number of small towns, including Paperville – about where Bristol would later be founded - and Blountsville. No road to Johnson City because there was not yet a Johnson City.

Abingdon, Rogersville and Jonesboro appear to be thriving communities as does Greenville, which hadn’t yet acquired its distinguishing middle “e.”

Greene County had the “e” but not the city.

Other 1839 towns didn’t thrive and are now lost to history.

Ever heard of Rockhold’s Store? Or Gustavus?

Of particular interest: Kingsport is located in Powell County, which was sandwiched in between Sullivan County and Hawkins County.

Powell County was home to Kingsport, Pactolus, New Canton and Fall Branch. Powell County didn’t survive either.

Leesburg, just west of Jonesboro (before it became Jonesborough) appears to be a town of some significance. It was. It was home to the DeVault Tavern, which is still standing but is now a private residence.

I’m very familiar with Leesburg. My Uncle Luther lived there. He knew the owners of the DeVault Tavern and took me there once – about 1980. The owners showed me a map of Leesburg that must have dated to around the time of the post road map. It looked like a prosperous small town with a handful of streets and lots laid out in a grid. I knew from all my visits to Uncle Luther that there were no streets or neighborhoods in Leesburg. In 1980 Leesburg was home to a dozen farms and one store, Dewey Waller’s General Store, at the intersection of Leesburg Road and Old Stagecoach Road.

Uncle Luther told me it was a map for the proposed town of Leesburg but the town was never built.

What happened? I asked.

“The railroad went through Jonesboro.”

 Powell County was on the Post Map as early as 1839 but the Tennessee legislature didn’t introduce legislation creating the county until Dec. 1869.

The official act read this way:

“An act to establish the county of Powell and for other purposes. Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the state of Tennessee, that a new county be, and the same is hereby established by taking a part of the counties of Sullivan. Hawkins. Greene and Washington, with the county site at Fall Branch, and be known by the name of Powell county, in honor of Samuel Powell, late one of the Judges of the Circuit Court.”

There follows 679 words describing the county’s boundaries.

It’s a description that would only make sense to someone alive in 1869:

“Commencing at a poplar tree near the late widow Whetlock’s, on the Sullivan and Washington county lines” on to a Spanish oak then to “a black oak near Andrew Goins’ field.”

The act was passed into law in June 1870. (That same session also passed a law to tax dogs.)

But it never took. Almost ten years later the Morristown Gazette (June 22, 1879) would report: “We understand a movement is again being made to establish the county of Powell from parts of Hawkins, Sullivan, Washington and Greene, with the courthouse at Fall Branch. This Powell county seems to have as many lives as a cat. It has been killed four or five times in the last forty years.”

You can see the entire map at:

https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3700m.gct00185/?sp=3&r=0.458,0.351,0.076,0.036,0

Click on map to enlarge

The Tri-Cities A Half Century Later – 1881 Map from Killebrew's Large Map atlas

When you hear the name Twin Cities, you know what people are talking about: Minneapolis and St. Paul. Same, sort of, for the Quad Cities. You know it’s somewhere out there, maybe Iowa? But you’ve heard of it. (It’s actually in Iowa and Illinois and is composed of five cities – explain that one to me.)

If you are from Kingsport, Tri-Cities means only one thing.

But the first reference on Google is Tri-Cities, Washington.

There are many, many areas that call themselves the Tri-Cities.

There’s:

Tri-Cities, British Columbia, Canada - Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, and Port Moody.

Tri-Cities, Ontario, Canada - Kitchener, Cambridge, and Waterloo.

Tri-Cities, Illinois - Geneva Batavia and St. Charles.

Tri-Cities, Michigan - Bay City, Saginaw, and Midland.

Tri-Cities, Nebraska - Grand Island, Kearney, and Hastings

Tri-Cities, New Hampshire - Dover, Somersworth, and Rochester.

Tri-Cities, Oklahoma - Tuttle, Newcastle, and Blanchard.

Tri-City, Oregon - Myrtle Creek, Canyonville and Riddle.

Tri-Cities, Virginia - Petersburg, Colonial Heights, and Hopewell.

Tri-Cities, Washington - Richland, Pasco, and Kennewick, Washington.

Ah, but only one has Tri-Cities airport. And that’s in, uh, Blountville, Tennessee.

So you can understand why Tri-Cities Tennessee is now looking to change it’s name.

Here’s the report from WJHL-TV in Johnson City:

TRI-CITIES (WJHL) - Local leaders want to change the name Tri-Cities and they're willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars to find the right replacement.

Johnson City commissioners voted unanimously to authorize an outside marketing firm to conduct a $48 thousand dollar study to research a new regional branding strategy.

"It needs to be right the first time and it doesn't surprise me that there would be some additional resources needed in order to do that," said Lori Payne, Kingsport Chamber of Commerce Chairman.

Johnson City Mayor Jenny Brock said that cost will be split between several localities who're collaborating to put the area on the map in a global economy.

"No one likes change, change is difficult," said Andy Dietrich, former chair of the Johnson City Chamber of Commerce. "We can't keep doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results."

He said the only area projected to grow in the next ten years is Washington County, Tennessee. The region as a whole is expected to decline economically, he said.

Dietrich sees regional branding as an opportunity to bring new business and tourism to town.

All of which reminds me of a joke told to me twenty years ago by Tom Jester:

You know the difference between a rain forest and a jungle? Marketing.