Kingsport, TN

During our trip up to Johnson City we also visited Kingsport, TN. Kingsport is a city in Sullivan, Hawkins and Washington counties in Tennessee. It is the largest city in the Kingsport-Bristol-Bristol, TN-VA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Kingsport is also part of the Tri-Cities region. It is commonly included in what is known as the Mountain Empire which spans a portion of southwest Virginia and the Mountainous counties of Tennessee to the east. The name 'Kingsport" is a simplification of "King's Port", originally referring to the area on the Holston River known as the King's Boat Yard, the head of navigation for the Tennessee Valley. It was an area that was used as a staging area for pioneers heading to the west. During the Civil War, a battle was held in Kingsport where the Confederate Army held the Union Army at bay for two days. The Union Army then won the battle and several Confederate soldiers were taken as prisoner and sent to the Knoxville prison camp. One interesting fact that happened in Kingsport is still talked about today. The execution of Mary the Elephant. In September of 1916 Kingsport residents demanded the death of circus elephant Mary (an Asian elephant who performed in the Sparks World Famous Shows Circus) for the killing of city hotel worker Walter Eldridge who was hired the day before as an assistant elephant trainer by the circus. Eldridge was killed by Mary in Kingsport while he was taking her to a nearby pond. Mary was impounded by the local sheriff. Leaders of several nearby towns threatened not to allow the circus to visit if Mary was included. The circus owner, Charie Sparks, reluctantly decided that the only way to quickly resolve the situation was to hold a public execution. On the following day Mary was transported by rail to Erwin, TN where a crowd of over 2,500 people assembled in the Clinchfield Railroad yard to watch her hang from a railroad crane. In September, every year, this story is reported on and it was one of the first things that I had heard about Kingsport when we came to the area.