Jonesboro and Gray, TN

For the past five years we have wanted to visit the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN, the oldest town in Tennessee. Our caravan included this terrific event as a part of our journey. We camped at the Appalachian Fairgrounds in neighboring Gray, TN on the last night of September with a group of Airstreamers from Tennessee. Each morning we shared a continental breakfast with them before our day of touring.

On Thursday we all did our own thing. Our choice was to tour the nearby Natural History Museum operated by East Tennessee State University. Miocene Age mammals once flourished at the five-acre, 100 feet deep site where we experienced an enriched fossil adventure. This limestone site once provided a sinkhole where many prehistoric animals fell in and were buried by sediments. Boulders from surrounding sites also tumbled in, and waterlogged sediments preserved the plant and animal fossils for four to five million years. The site was discovered in 2000 by highway crews building a new road. Gov. Don Sundquist ordered the highway diverted around the fossil site, which is still actively and carefully being explored by scientists with tools ranging from shovels to the latest satellite technology. Specimens discovered so far include a saber-toothed cat, dwarf tapir, an extinct rhino, and several new species. They have only scratched the surface.

History is still being made in Jonesborough, a quaint, scenic, friendly place, recognized by one author as “One of America’s most charming towns and villages.” Andrew Jackson once practiced law here, and the Emancipator Newspaper was the first to promote the emancipation of slaves in 1820. There are garden galas where residents open their homes to garden tours and teas. One man has a large model train running through his garden. During the year the town, with its Early American architecture, hosts many events, but the biggest is the National Storytelling Festival that has been held here since 1973.

For the next three days we, along with nearly 10,000 others, attended the festival. Five huge tents served as the place where myriad storytellers were featured. The biggest problem was picking which one. Some presenters have been coming here from the beginning, and one, a 92 year old woman, was so popular that people literally ran to grab a seat in the tent where she was featured. The many stories offered at the festival range from family tales to complete fabrications. Several of the storytellers combined instruments and/or vocal presentations to their stories. Photography inside the tents was not permitted. Our weather was fabulous, good food was reasonably priced, and parking at First Baptist Church was convenient, and we were amazed that the acoustics in every tent were superb. On Sunday morning, after an excellent devotional by a member of the TN Unit, our caravanners along with several members of the rally unit, attended a fantastic champaign buffet brunch at the historic General Morgan Inn in Greeneville. Jonesborough is definitely a town to which we will return. We recommend it highly.