Day Four of the Quest for Kingston

Given the conditions yesterday, the idea of heading south was very appealing. The temperature in Kingston Tennessee was a beautiful 50 Degrees today - with no sign of snow.

Kingston, Tennessee is about 400 miles due south of Kingston, Ohio and amazingly enough about the same size in population - approximately 6000 people. The fact that there are motels available here and not in Kingston, Ohio is probably due to the close proximity of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park which is about 40 miles south east.

Kingston has two claims to fame - pretty good for a small town. The first and most boring is the coal fired plant which used to be the largest in the world when it was built in the 50's - the smokestacks are an impressive sight.








The second and most interesting is that it was the state capital for a single day in 1807. Why only a day you ask? Well apparently the white man promised the Cherokee nation that if the the Indians gave up their claims on the land in the surrounding area that Kingston would be made the capital city of Tennessee. The Indians did just that and true to the white man's word - Kingston was appointed the state capital - though just for the day. Seems the Indians didn't have a very good lawyer.


Kingston is (well it was when steam boats were in fashion) a port town - located on the Watts Bar Lake. Though it is a port town - no Queen's University is located here.