KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — People will be a chance to celebrate Tennessee's birthday a little early on Saturday. The Marble Springs Tennessee Statehood Day Festival will kick off at 10 a.m. and run until 4 p.m.
Marble Springs State Historic Site will be filled with craft vendors, re-enactors, games and performances from the Knoxville Area Dulcimer Club and Wild Blue Yonder. The Dulcimer Club is expected to play at 10 a.m., according to organizers.
Wild Blue Yonder will start playing at 1 p.m. on Saturday. At 11 a.m. the festival will also host a lecture about John Sevier and the birth of Tennessee, led by Chris Magra.
Attendees will be able to learn about the history of the site, and of the state. there will be historical lectures so families can enrich themselves with the stories of the land and learn what it was like to live when the state was founded.
People will be able to stop by the tavern hearth to learn how food was prepared, and witness it firsthand by reenactors. The event is free for anyone to attend.
Tennessee officially became a state on June 1, 1796, when President George Washington made it the 16th state to join the U.S. Knoxville was the state's first capital too.
It was a long road to statehood for Tennessee, according to the Tennessee State Museum. Before the Revolutionary War, the British reserved the land for Native Americans only.
After the war, the state of North Carolina claimed all the land just west of the Appalachian Mountains and opened it up to settlers, causing years of conflict and war with the Native Americans. The settlers also complained the state wasn't protecting them as tribes were killed.
North Carolina gave up the land to the federal government to pay off war debts, and the settlers' first attempt to form a new state was called the State of Franklin. Despite having a state constitution and a governor and being in existence from 1785 to 1788, the federal government did not recognize Franklin and instead relegated the land to part of the Southwest Territory.
Eventually, with Gov. John Sevier leading the way, Tennessee completed the new steps outlined in the U.S. Constitution to become a state, and it worked.
