NRHP Reference # 66000733 Area 33.99 km² Nearest city Kingsport | Designated NHLD October 9, 1960 Year built 1760 Added to NRHP 15 October 1966 | |
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Long Island, also known as Long Island of the Holston, is an island in the Holston River at Kingsport in eastern Tennessee.
Contents
Map of Long Island, Kingsport, TN 37660, USA
Historical significance
The Long Island of the Holston was a sacred council and treaty site among the Cherokee people. The Timberlake Expedition of 1761–1762 used it as its point of origin and return. It was from here that Daniel Boone, in 1775, began to clear the Wilderness Road, which extended through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. Long Island of the Holston is on the National Register of Historic Places, and is designated as a U.S. National Historic Landmark District.
History
The Long Island of the Holston River was an important site for the Cherokee, colonial pioneers, and early settlers of the region. The site was used as a staging ground for people following the Wilderness Road into Kentucky. A long-standing settlement built at the site was chartered as the town of Kingsport in 1822, and became an important regional shipping port on the Holston River in the early nineteenth century. Goods brought in from the surrounding countryside were loaded onto barges for transport downstream to the Holton's confluence with the Tennessee River (at Knoxville). The young town lost its charter, however, after a downturn in its fortunes precipitated by the Civil War.
During prohibition, the island gained a reputation for violence and bootlegging.
Long Island of the Holston was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1960. The island, however, has been heavily transformed by industrial development. National Park Service staff recommended withdrawal of the National Historic Landmark status in 1996 due to a loss of the island's historic integrity.
Demographics
Most of the island lies within the corporate boundaries of Kingsport. Long Island's population peaked between 1955 and 1963, holding 517 residences and approximately 1,800 people at the time.
There are only a handful of houses on the island as of 2015. About half of Long Island now contains a park administered by the city of Kingsport, but the other half of the island is the site of a waste treatment plant owned by Tennessee Eastman Chemical Company.