Historic Sites - Chester Inn
29 Chester Inn
- Chester Inn
The Chester Inn, built in 1797 by Dr. William P. Chester of Berlin, Pennsylvania, has earned a reputation as the first boarding house in eastern Tennessee. As the stage coach line developed, the inn was enlarged. The porch and front facade were rebuilt in 1883 in the Italianate style, and the structure has been continuously occupied as an inn, a hotel, and an apartment building. Many famous people have stayed at the inn, including United States Presidents Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and Andrew Johnson, and John Sevier, governor of the state of Franklin and Tennessee’s first governor. President Jackson held a reception for his friends on the porch of the inn during the summer of 1832, the year he was elected president for a second term.
In recent years the inn has undergone an extensive rehabilitation and houses the National Storytelling Association. The association boasts a library of over 200 hours of audio and video recordings of storytelling material and every October hosts the annual Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, the first town to be chartered in Tennessee.
Chester Inn Web Site
116 West Main Street,
Jonesborough, TN 37659
(423) 753-2171
Hours: By appointment only.
