Kingsport’s Bicentennial Celebration at Netherland Inn

Kingsport’s Bicentennial Celebration at Netherland Inn

Kingsport’s Bicentennial celebration will take place at the Netherland Inn on Saturday, August 20 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The celebration is free and open to the public and will include re-enactors and storytellers, craft demonstrations, live music, a mock charter signing and historical documents on display. Visitors can also take a self-guided tour of the Inn’s grounds and take a photograph with an authentic stagecoach.

Kingsport celebrated its centennial in 2017 and now, just five years later, will celebrate its bicentennial. How is this possible?

It’s because Kingsport had two charters – the first one on August 21, 1822 and the second one on March, 2 1917.

Two-hundred years ago the Tennessee General Assembly passed an act to incorporate the town of Kingsport to include all of the lots from the east end of Ross’ Bridge to the fork of Reedy Creek Road. The charter was then amended in 1825 to expand the city limits west on West Sullivan Street and Fort Robinson Drive to the North Fork of the Holston River and downstream to the Rotherwood Bridge.

This town, commonly referred to as “Old Kingsport” to local students of history, is the area along the Holston River in the vicinity of Netherland Inn – the site where signatures were collected to petition for the original charter.

Kingsport lost its original charter in 1879 and was unincorporated until 1917, when the second charter was granted. Until 1963, the boundaries of new Kingsport did not include the Netherland Inn Road area.

For more information about the Netherland Inn and Kingsport’s Bicentennial Celebration, visit thenetherlandinn.com or https://bit.ly/3PdqWsF.

About the City of Kingsport

Founded in 1917, the City of Kingsport (pop. 55,400) is located on the Tennessee-Virginia border at the crossroads of I-81 and I-26 near the geographic center of the eastern U.S. The city is widely known as a planned community, designed by renowned city planner John Nolen and wrapping around the foot of Bays Mountain – a 3,650-acre park, nature preserve, planetarium and observatory. Kingsport is recognized as an International Safe Community by the National Safety Council, a Healthier Tennessee community, and won the 2009 Harvard Innovations in American Government Award for its higher education initiatives. While many city names are duplicated throughout the U.S., there’s only one Kingsport – a fact that invokes community pride, known locally as the “Kingsport Spirit.”