Qualla: Bristol, Virginia

Bristol, Virginia: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. The double yellow line painted down the middle of State Street is also a state border. Step across it and you have left Virginia and entered Tennessee, or the other way around, depending which direction you were heading. A brass marker is embedded in the asphalt for anybody who needs the line drawn for them. Bristol is two cities, twins separated by a line a road crew can repaint - and on a hot day in 1927, in a building just off that line on the Tennessee side, a record producer named Ralph Peer set up portable equipment on the second and third floors of the Taylor-Christian Hat Company and recorded the music that became country.

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Bristol, Virginia: The Bristol Sessions

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JJBers from Willimantic, Connecticut, USA, CC BY 2.0. In late July 1927 Peer, working for Victor Records, ran a newspaper ad asking local musicians to come audition. He paid $50 a song and royalties. On July 31, A.P. Carter, his wife Sara, and his sister-in-law Maybelle drove over from Maces Spring, Virginia - about 25 miles away in...

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Image: JJBers from Willimantic, Connecticut, USA | CC BY 2.0

Bristol, Virginia: Shelby's Station

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit mr_t_77 from WV, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. Long before the recording sessions there was Sapling Grove. Evan Shelby moved his family here in 1766 and built a fort on the hill overlooking what is now downtown. Cherokee hunters had named the spot Big Camp Meet for the way deer and buffalo gathered in the canebrakes. Daniel B...

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Image: mr_t_77 from WV, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0

Bristol, Virginia: Hank's Last Burger

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daniel Grogan from Bristol TN, USA, CC BY 2.0. In the early hours of January 1, 1953, a powder-blue Cadillac convertible was driving north through Bristol on its way to a concert in Canton, Ohio. The driver, Charles Carr, was 17 years old and had been hired to keep Hank Williams awake. They pulled over at a hamburger joint on...

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Image: Daniel Grogan from Bristol TN, USA | CC BY 2.0

Bristol, Virginia: Thunder Valley and the Border

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gregory W. Luce, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the Tennessee side, Bristol Motor Speedway calls itself the world's fastest half mile. Twice a year it fills with about 150,000 NASCAR fans whose noise the bowl-shaped track sends echoing up the hills. The adjacent dragstrip is nicknamed Thunder Valley for the same reason. Bac...

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Image: Gregory W. Luce | CC BY-SA 4.0