Kingsport

Kingsport, city, Sullivan county, northeastern Tennessee, U.S., on the Holston River, near the Virginia border, about 90 miles (145 km) northeast of Knoxville. The area was settled in the late 1700s when entrepreneur William King founded a boatyard along the river. The region was part of the short-lived state of Franklin in the 1780s. In the early 1800s two towns, Christianville and Rossville, were laid out adjacent to each other; in 1822 these towns merged...