Hampton, TN

Hampton is an unincorporated Carter County community in a broad Doe River valley southeast of Elizabethton and northwest of Roan Mountain. The Little Doe River and Laurel Fork join the local water story, while the Unaka, Iron, Pond, and Cedar Mountains close in around the roads. Watauga Lake lies northeast, and the Appalachian Trail reaches the eastern edge of the community. The valley is the organizing fact, and the roads keep turning back toward the river.

Elijah Simerly established Hampton in the late 1860s and named it for his wife, Mary Hampton. His Italianate house, now known as the Simerly-Butler House or Butler Mansion, gives the community a fixed historic landmark. The railroad is part of the place’s shape too: Doe River Gorge uses a stretch of former East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad roadbed, with a narrow-gauge line running into the gorge. Put Hampton on the map as a mountain-road community where the river valley, an old railroad grade, a National Register house, and the Appalachian Trail all meet.