The Presidential Trail

Your journey begins where Tennessee government began. Rocky Mount served as the capitol of the Southwest Territory from 1790 to 1792 — the federal territory south of the Ohio River that President Washington created and William Blount governed. The Cobb family who owned this farm hosted Blount and the territorial administration, making this hillside the center of American frontier governance. Andrew Jackson, a young lawyer making his name in the territory, traveled these roads and knew this world intimately. As you walk the grounds with costumed interpreters, you're walking the same paths that led to Tennessee statehood in 1796.

• • Guided living history tour of the Southwest Territory capitol
• • Museum gallery with original artifacts from the 1790s territorial period
• • Learn how Governor Blount administered the territory that became Tennessee
• • See the Century Farm landscape that has been cultivated since 1775

Drive north 20 minutes through rolling Sullivan County farmland to Blountville, the historic county seat named for Governor Blount himself.

The Great Stage Road was the interstate highway of the 18th and 19th centuries — the lifeline connecting the eastern seaboard to the trans-Appalachian frontier. The Deery Inn was one of its most important stops. Three future presidents slept here: Andrew Jackson, the frontier lawyer who became Old Hickory; James K. Polk, who would expand the nation to the Pacific; and Andrew Johnson, the Greeneville tailor who became Lincoln's successor. Standing at the inn, you feel the weight of that traffic — politicians, settlers, soldiers, merchants, all pushing westward through the same doorway. Blountville itself, the Sullivan County seat since 1795, surrounds you with the architecture and atmosphere of frontier civic life.

• • Walk the halls where Jackson, Polk, and Johnson rested on the Great Stage Road
• • Learn about the inn's role as a critical waypoint on the frontier highway
• • Guided narrative of each president's connection to Sullivan County
• • Explore historic Blountville, Tennessee's frontier county seat

Drive 10 minutes south to Bluff City for the Holston Heritage Museum, which adds the river valley's deeper story to your presidential narrative.

The Holston River valley was the corridor that made everything else possible. Before there were presidents traveling the Great Stage Road, there were Scots-Irish families floating down the Holston, Cherokee bands walking ancient trails, and a landscape that drew people from across the Atlantic. The Holston Heritage Museum fills in the human story around the presidential narrative — the everyday people whose farms, families, and fortunes created the world those presidents moved through. It's the context that makes the big stories real.

• • Artifacts and stories from the Holston River settlement corridor
• • Understanding the landscape these presidents traveled through
• • Local family histories that connect to the national narrative

Day 1 complete. Return to your Bristol or Kingsport accommodations. Tomorrow brings Cherokee treaty grounds and the music that changed America.

Day 2 opens at one of the most significant sites in the American Southeast. Long Island of the Holston was sacred to the Cherokee — a place of council, ceremony, and diplomacy. In 1777, the Treaty of Long Island was negotiated here, ceding land that would accelerate Euro-American settlement. The presidents who later traveled through Sullivan County moved through a landscape fundamentally shaped by this treaty and the Cherokee people who called it home for centuries before European contact. Standing on the island, the presidential story gains its necessary depth — this land has stories far older than any republic.

• • Sacred Cherokee council grounds where treaties shaped boundaries
• • The 1777 Treaty of Long Island and its consequences for both peoples
• • Understanding the Cherokee perspective on the frontier story
• • Interpretive markers along the river

Drive 45 minutes east to Bristol for the tour's grand finale — the music that put Sullivan County on the world map.

The Presidential Trail ends where Sullivan County's next great story begins. In 1927 — just a few miles from the stagecoach roads those presidents traveled — Ralph Peer set up a temporary recording studio and captured the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers on wax, launching the commercial country music industry. The thread connecting frontier governance to American music runs straight through Sullivan County. The Birthplace of Country Music Museum, a Smithsonian affiliate, tells that story with the craft and immersion it deserves. You leave this tour understanding that Sullivan County isn't just where Tennessee began — it's where some of America's most important stories intersected.

• • Immersive exhibits on the 1927 Bristol Sessions
• • Hear rare recordings of the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers
• • Interactive experiences that put you in Ralph Peer's recording studio
• • Smithsonian-affiliate museum quality in downtown Bristol