Country Music’s Birthplace Up For Sale

BRISTOL, Tenn. – For sale: the birthplace of country music.
No kidding. On Friday, four tracts of land considered to be the most historic in Bristol will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Developer Tim Carter, Starwood Properties’ president, owns a 6,700-square-foot building and two adjacent parking lots on State Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Fifth Street. In a hat company building that once stood on a portion of the site, talent scout Ralph Peer made the first commercially successful country music recordings of artists including the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers and the Stonemans, which eventually led to Bristol’s claim to fame as the birthplace of country music.

Carter said Wednesday he is selling the property because he is “reducing much of our commercial inventory, bracing for leaner economic conditions in the coming months. We are hoping that the property will be purchased by individuals or organizations that will perceive this site’s historic significance. The site needs to be preserved and developed for all of Bristol.”

Tours of the property begin at 9 a.m. Friday at 416 State St., followed by the auction at 10 a.m. 

Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, will handle the auctioneering for his company, Ron Ramsey & Associates, Realtors and Auctioneers. Although he would not name names, Ramsey said city officials and several downtown business owners have expressed interest in the property.

“We do have some interested parties, I can tell you that,” Ramsey said Wednesday. “The ideal situation would be to leave the building like it is and build an amphitheater on the corner site.”

Ramsey was referring to the parking lot east of the existing building – the same location adorned with markers and plaques heralding the spot as the birthplace of Bristol itself and the site of the “Big Bang of Country Music.”

The town of Bristol was planned and laid out by Joseph Rhea Anderson in 1852. In 1853, Anderson began developing the State Street site with construction of his combined home and business.

According to the Tennessee historical marker recently placed on the property, the building served as “the community’s first store, post office, bank, and realty office. The first election, town council meeting, court session, church service, wedding, and birth took place there.”

The location also was the site of the Taylor Hat Co., where in 1927, Peer, the talent scout, opened a makeshift recording studio in the upstairs of the building.

Other historic records point to the site as being the location of Buntings Drug Store, which served as both a commercial and social hub downtown. 

“Many people still reminisce about Buntings, the hot dogs and the soda fountain as well as the glass-top tables,” Carter said. “It was the place to hang out.”

Bill Hartley, executive director of the Birthplace of Country Music Alliance, said Wednesday he will attend the auction.

Hartley said the alliance is currently tied up in raising money to complete The Birthplace of Country Music Cultural Heritage Center on Cumberland Street in Bristol, Va.

“That’s the spot,” he said of Carter’s property. “The city was founded on that corner. We [the alliance] wish we could buy those tracts, but we’re really focused on the cultural heritage center. But we are interested in what happens there. I’ll be going over just to see who buys the tracts. I think that whoever gets it should keep it as a historical site.”

The building on the site currently houses the offices of Starwood Properties and the law firm of Hale, Lyle and Russell. The office space will be sold as two separate tracts.

The appraised value of the total building is $473,000; the corner lot on MLK Boulevard is $58,300; and the lot on the opposite side of the building, $144,400, according to the Sullivan County Assessor’s Office.

Site maps and other property documentation can be acquired by calling Tim Carter at (423) 652-1314.
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