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the public and will include re-enactors and storytellers, craft demonstrations, live music, a mock charter signing and historical documents on display.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.