Newport: New Port on the French Broad

John Gilliland planted a corn crop at the mouth of the Pigeon River in seventeen eighty-three just to stake a claim to the land. That act of colonial pragmatism helped open the upper Tennessee frontier, and a few years later the Gilliland family donated fifty acres for a town square and courthouse on the French Broad River. They called the settlement New Port, because it was a new river port connecting the mountain communities behind them to commerce down the valley.

Cocke County was carved out of neighboring counties in seventeen ninety-seven, named for Revolutionary War soldier William Cocke, and Newport served as its seat. When the railroad arrived in eighteen sixty-seven, town leaders tried to move the county seat to the rail stop at Clifton. After a court fight, a new courthouse went up there in eighteen eighty-four, and Clifton took the name Newport.

The original location became Oldtown. Today Newport sits at the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains, a gateway town where the Pigeon and the French Broad converge before the ridges close in.