HAWKINS

County Seat: Rogersville
Rogersville was the site of Tennessee's first newspaper, started in 1791. Oddly enough the paper was called the Knoxville Gazette, and it moved to Knoxville shortly after it was founded in Rogersville. Hawkins County was also the original site of Pressman's Home, a place where people once came from all over the country to learn how to work in the printing industry.

There is a small museum in Rogersville where you can learn about both of these things. You'll find the Rogersville Newspaper and Printing Museum in an old railroad depot. 
The marble interior of a Nashville bank in the 1940s
PHOTO: Courtesy AmSouth Bank

Also related to Hawkins County: Marble is limestone that is so hard that it can be given a very high polish, and Hawkins County is world-famous for its marble. One particular grade of marble that comes from Hawkins County has a pink color, and there are many government buildings and banks across the country where you will see it on the floor and on the walls. Much of the marble used in the interior of the national Capitol building and at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington came from Hawkins County, Tennessee.

 

By the way, they are now building a visitor's center at the national Capitol in Washington, D.C. The marble for that building is also coming from Tennessee, from a mine in Blount County.



Here's a picture of the Hawkins County Courthouse.

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