Blue Ridge Country July/August 2024 - 15

smoothly on well-maintained streets and restored sidewalks.
Wayfinding signs lead you to side streets with
quirky shops like George Webb's Tennessee Books and
Autographs and Bull Babies restaurant (known for its
huge portions of southern comfort food and weekend
" brunch and beer " ).
" Last year, we saw 23 new businesses open that created
74 new jobs-with over $1.2 million in public and
private capital investment, " says Nancy Barker, director
of the Rogersville/Hawkins County Chamber of
Commerce and Rogersville Main Street program.
" What's especially exciting is that folks are coming
here and buying entire buildings,
rather than just renting the
downstairs storefront. We're getting
grants to work on the building
facades as they renovate the
interiors. "
Barker is rightly proud of
steady stream of
the
Main
Street celebrations in her hometown.
Monthly cruise-ins May
through October. The Junk and
as they build skills for the future? Vitality personified.
All of this energy, in a small town of 4,700 people...
off major interstate routes...tucked away in the " secondary
ridges " of the Smokies and the long shadow of Dollywood
and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Nowhere is the spirit of Rogersville more apparent
Jam Vintage Fair. Last year,
40,000 people came to the longstanding
mid-October Heritage
Days Festival, with over 120
juried crafts vendors, Civil War Cavalry reenactments
and Appalachian music, dancing and food.
It's worth noting that Rogersville accomplishes all of
" Last year, we saw
23 new businesses
open that created 74
new jobs-with over
$1.2 million in public
and private capital
investment. "
than in Coffee at the Kyle, where, at 7:30 on a weekday
morning, the coffee flows nonstop, and the yeasty
goodness of made-from-scratch breakfasts fills the
place. Housed in a large brick house built by Rogersville
founder Joseph Rogers that was used as the Confederate
Headquarters during the Civil War because it faces
south, Coffee at the Kyle is owned
by Stephanie Lord.
" We
always thought
this
town was underrated, " she says
with a smile. " My husband and
I opened Red Dog on Main five
years ago, and this coffee shop in
2016-we wanted to help Main
Street recover. "
Lord believes that hospitality
builds community-and to watch
the steady stream of customers
and groups meeting in adjoining
sitting rooms, you know that's
bottom-line true.
I've sometimes wondered if towns with deep roots
these public celebrations with the strategic help of a program
aimed at engaging young residents. The Heritage
Lites Youth Leadership program is overseen by the Heritage
Association, but also does projects for the chamber
of commerce. Young participants, celebrating the past
wrapped around long-ago stories-and a lot of " oldest "
claims-can move forward with grace as the calendar
pages flip into new decades and centuries.
In Rogersville, I learned first-hand that with careful
attention to and restoration of what was, the future can
rise with a beautiful new energy. In Rogersville, it's not
either-or...it's both-and.
LEFT: The
Newspaper
and Printing
Museum, open
by appointment,
offers a
unique look at
Tennessee's
storied printing
history.
'CRADLE OF TENNESSEE JOURNALISM'
Located in the restored 1890 Southern Railway depot, the Newspaper and
Printing Museum pays homage to the first newspaper printed in Tennessee.
According to an account in the 2023 Hawkins County Guidebook, the story
goes something like this:
In 1791, George Roulstone, the first printer to enter the state of Tennessee,
took his press apart in Fayetteville, North Carolina, packed it on horses' backs or
in wagons, and trekked over the Blue Ridge Mountains in to the Holston Valley,
where Kingsport now stands. There... he loaded it on a flat boat and floated it
down to Rogersville, where he set it up and started printing the Knoxville Gazette,
the first piece of printing ever attempted in Tennessee.
Though Roulstone left Rogersville the next year and took the paper to the
newly established city of Kingsport, Rogersville rightly claims the first newspaper
printing in Tennessee. Its Newspaper and Printing Museum contains a
replica of Roulstone's 1791 newpaper, contents of other early print shops and
the last linotype machine used to set type for a newspaper in the state.
JULY/AUGUST 2024 15
Blue Ridge Country July/August 2024

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