The City of Kingsport dedicated its newest park – Riverbend Park - back in December. Located along the South Fork of the Holston River off Fort Henry Drive, the park features a floating fishing pier, stylistic benches and a half-mile walking trail along the bank of the river.

Ultimately, Riverbend Park will be 22 acres in size, stretching from Riverbend Drive to Wesley Road, offering the public a variety of features such as play areas, pavilions, restrooms and scenic spots.

Jeff Bradley, whose family once owned the land where Riverbend Park is located, attended the dedication and expressed his gratitude for what Kingsport did with the property.

“Six generations of my family have recreated on that property, for picnics and hikes and it makes me happy to know that countless more generations will be able to enjoy the property and the river,” Bradley said at the dedication. “It’s a wonderful park and a wonderful addition to Kingsport’s parks.”

Bradley’s family ties to the property date back more than 133 years to when his family arrived in Sullivan County from Haywood County, North Carolina in the 1880s. The family’s construction company was charged with building the 3C Railroad through the Appalachian Mountains. However, when the company financing the endeavor went bankrupt, the Bradley family found themselves stuck outside of Kingsport.

The railroad bed ended roughly where Riverbend Park is located, and you can see vestiges of the bed in nearby Warriors’ Path State Park.

“There wasn’t a railroad going through the Appalachian Mountains from Washington D.C. to Nashville and the company wanted a more direct route,” Bradley said. “A private company had issued bonds to fund it and when the company went broke, that halted the construction.”

With construction halted and the family now living in Kingsport, Bradley’s great-grandparents, James and Mary, purchased a 100-plus acre farm that stretched from the Holston River to what is now Fort Henry Drive and from below the Hammond Bridge to the Cliffside neighborhood.

An original log house, one that three generations of Bradleys grew up in, was located close to where the Murphy’s gas station is located. When the final property was sold, a young couple purchased the logs and reassembled them in Washington County.

Like many farmers in East Tennessee at the time, the Bradley family grew a large garden, tobacco and hay and raised cattle, chickens and hogs. For the most part, the family was self-sufficient with Bradley recalling a story from his father of how the family hardly noticed the Great Depression, because they raised all their own food.

After Bradley’s grandparents passed away, the farm went to his father and uncles, the founders of the Bradley Brothers Construction Company – a company that operated throughout the Tri-Cities region for 50 years. The 100-acre property was eventually sold off in chunks over the years with the last piece being sold about 20 years ago.

Bradley said he has many fond memories of the farm and is delighted that Kingsport has transformed part of the property into a public park.

“I helped put up hay on the farm and worked for the construction company every summer from age 14 and up. It was a great place to go to and it was like a private park,” Bradley said. “Later years, my uncle built a small pavilion over there so people could have picnics and watch the trains. It was just a fun place.”