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.
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. Click here to be taken to its web site.
The marble interior of a bank in the 1940s
PHOTO: Courtesy AmSouth Bank
Here are two things related to natural resources in 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.
People visit the Ebbing and Flowing Spring in 1949
PHOTO: TN State Library and Archives
Hawkins County also contains one of only two known natural springs in the world that runs on a cycle. It is known as the Ebbing and Flowing Spring.
The spring operates on a cycle that is 2 hours and 47 minutes long. At times it flows at a trickle, and at other times water comes out of it at a rate of 500 gallons per minute. Why? No one knows.
However, local story maintains that any couple drinking from the spring at the peak of its flow will get married!
And, speaking of getting married, here’s a picture of the Hawkins County Courthouse.
