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Feature article
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Kingsport has a modern, urban design
By Chelsea Griffith
Called the Model City because of its design planned by John Nolen, modern Kingsport was chartered in 1917 but people had been living here for decades prior.
Settlers were moving to the area around the Holston River as far back the 18th century. In the early 1800s, the city’s namesake William King built the Netherland Inn for the sole purpose of developing a boatyard from which to ship salt mined in Saltville, Va.
In the early part of the 20th century, George Carter, John B. Dennis and J. Fred Johnson sought out to create the Clinchfield Railroad so that the products of Appalachia could be sold nationally.
Kingsport was the first city with a modern urban design and among the first municipalities with a city manager form of government and a school system built on a model developed at Columbia University. Nolen, a city planner from Cambridge, Mass., designed the city for 50,000 residents.
Nolen’s plan put industry along the river, residences on higher ground and commercial endeavors on the area in between.
Among the first industries in Kingsport were the Clinchfield Portland Cement Co., which later became Penn-Dixie and the Kingsport Brick Corp., which is now General Shale Brick.
In 1920, a new industrial base began forming when J. Fred Johnson helped persuade George Eastman, founder of Eastman Kodak Co., to purchase a partially completed plant in Kingsport for the manufacture of methanol.
John B. Dennis also helped form the Kingsport Press in 1922 in the building of a defunct leather company. By 1923, the Kingsport Pulp Co., had become the Mead Fiber Co.
Those three manufacturers are now among the city’s largest industrial employers.
Eastman Chemical Co., employs some 7,500 people. Quebecor World, the successor to Kingsport Press, employs 850. Weyerhaeuser, the former Mead Corp., employs 350.
Other significant employers are AFG Industries with 1,700 employees and BAE Systems with 387.
Based in Kingsport, Wellmont Health System is another large employer with some 4,500 employees system-wide. Wellmont operates Holston Valley Medical Center in Kingsport along with a variety of other health-related facilities including an outpatient clinic on West Stone Drive.
The city of Kingsport has 650 full-time equivalent employees. Kingsport City Schools employ some 1,050 people.
The city school system operates seven elementary schools, two middle schools and a high school, Dobyns-Bennett High School, as well as an alternative school for high school students.
Cultural opportunities abound in Kingsport with Bays Mountain Park, Exchange Place and the Netherland Inn historic sites.
There are some 135 of restaurants in Kingsport and several retail shopping opportunities, including two Wal-Mart Supercenters, a Super Kmart, the Fort Henry Mall and East Stone Commons.
Kingsport
2000 population -- 44,905
Total households -- 19,530
Own home -- 65%
Married couples with children -- 18%
Married couples with no children -- 29%
High school graduate or higher 77%
Bachelor’s degree or higher 24%
Per capita income $20,549
Note: Percentages have been rounded off.
Source: Census 2000
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