Pressmen's Home

Overview

A union town in Poor Valley

Pressmen's Home lies in the Poor Valley area of Hawkins County, about nine miles north of Rogersville by Wikipedia's count and a dozen by the Tennessee Encyclopedia's. It was the idea of George L. Berry, who grew up nearby and in 1907 became president of the International Printing Pressmen and Assistants' Union of North America. In 1911 he talked the union into buying the Hale Springs Resort, a mineral-spring retreat, and moving its headquarters there. The resort buildings became the core of a company town that made its own electricity years before the Tennessee Valley Authority reached the rest of the county.

At its height the Tennessee Encyclopedia counts 2,700 acres: a four-story technical school, which it calls the largest of its kind in the world, that trained 3,148 pressmen, a sanatorium that treated more than 900 craftsmen with tuberculosis over 41 years, a luxury hotel open to the public, a chapel, homes, offices and a post office. The encyclopedia calls it the only community anywhere devoted entirely to the printing craft.

By the 1960s the union's leaders felt the remote valley was a handicap against rival unions lobbying the federal government. The headquarters left in 1967 and the retirement home closed in 1969. Plans for a resort, a retirement community and even a state prison came and went. Developers built the Camelot resort in the 1970s and went bankrupt. Since then the buildings have fallen into disrepair, been torn down or burned, by accident or by arson.

Timeline

Hale Springs to Camelot

1. 1907George L. Berry of Rogersville becomes president of the International Printing Pressmen and Assistants' Union. He leads it until his death in 1948.
2. 1911On Berry's urging the union buys the Hale Springs Resort, a sulphur-spring retreat in the valley, and makes it the union's headquarters. The Home Building goes up the same year.
3. 1912The Administration Building is built and houses the first trade school.
4. 1914Pressmen's Home gets a post office.
5. 1916The tuberculosis sanatorium opens. Union members are treated free.
6. 1926A four-story hotel and the sandstone Memorial Chapel are built.
7. 1947–1948A new trade school building opens. Wikipedia gives both years.
8. 1961–1962The sanatorium closes and is torn down.
9. 1967The union moves its headquarters away. The retirement home for members closes in 1969.
10. 1971The Pressmen's Home post office closes. One operates as Camelot until 1975.
11. 1970sAn investment group turns part of the site into the Camelot resort and sells vacation-home lots. Buyers sue over unbuildable slopes, and the developer goes bankrupt.
12. Oct 1994The hotel is destroyed by arson.
13. Oct 24, 2024Omega Nugae LLC of Boone, North Carolina, buys the trade school buildings and surrounding property for $200,000.
14. Nov 24, 2024Fire breaks out in a smaller building behind the trade school where chemicals were stored. Fifty-four households within a mile are evacuated until 2:50 a.m.

1911–1967

School, sanatorium, hotel and chapel

The Home Building of 1911 housed the visitors who had once come for the sulphur water, then the union's officers, and later full-time residents. It was lost to arson years after the union left. The Administration Building of 1912 held the trade school until 1947, then the union's executive offices, records and editorial rooms. The sanatorium of 1916 was built at a time when printer's ink was thought to cause tuberculosis; members were treated free, and many who died are buried in the cemetery at Pressmen's Home. It closed in 1961 and was demolished the next year.

The hotel of 1926 had a sandstone front from a quarry on the property, a tiled lobby and meals drawn from the union's own dairy, poultry, gardens and hog lot. It burned in October 1994. The Memorial Chapel of 1926, by architect John Sheridan, was built of native sandstone with stained glass from Louis Comfort Tiffany and a ceiling fresco, in memory of members who died in World War I. Wikipedia adds, without a citation, that it was thought to be the only church owned by a labor union. Berry was buried in a mausoleum beside it, though his remains have since been moved to the cemetery in Rogersville.

The trade school building, finished in 1947 or 1948, held more than $500,000 of presses and equipment loaned by the makers, and taught letterpress, gravure, offset, ink mixing, platemaking, color separation and bindery work.

What's left

Two school buildings and a chapel

The Rogersville Review reported in December 2024 that many of the original campus buildings are gone, but that the two trade school buildings at the center of the campus remain and are privately owned. A fire burned a smaller building behind them on November 24, 2024; Wikipedia adds that it did not harm the main building. Wikipedia, undated, says the chapel and the Berry mausoleum still stand and that a golf course and country club operate on the property. We haven't confirmed either.

The 1883 sheet in the historic maps below shows only Stone Mountain, Devil's Nose and Caney Creek near the site. The 1935 sheet labels Pressmens Home and the Memorial Chapel, with a hydroelectric line running past, and the 1940 sheet adds the lake beside SR 94. On the 1961 sheet, revised later in purple, the name Camelot appears with a swimming pool and reservoir, and the 1981 sheet marks Camelot and Pressmens Home Lake. Today's topo still prints Camelot.

• Trade school buildings (1947–1948)
• Memorial Chapel (1926), per Wikipedia
• Berry mausoleum, per Wikipedia
• Pressmens Home Lake
• Hotel site (burned 1994)
• Home Building site (arson)
• Sanatorium site (demolished 1962)
• Cemetery

Historic maps

Pressmen's Home on USGS maps, 1883–1981

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

18831:125,00019351:24,00019401:24,00019611:24,00019811:100,000

Map & directions

Getting there

Rogersville is the closest town, about 20 minutes away by SR 70 and SR 94. From Knoxville the route follows I-40 east briefly, then US 11W most of the way, and comes in on SR 66 and SR 94. The site is private, so treat the end of the route as a drive past, not a stop.

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

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Nearby

Other sites near Pressmen's Home

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our Tennessee index.

• Wasp41.7 mi S · Cocke
• Elkmont62.4 mi SW · Sevier
• Tremont67.0 mi SW · Blount
• Fork Mountain79.3 mi W · Anderson
• Wheat81.7 mi SW · Roane
• Calderwood83.9 mi SW · Monroe
• Montgomery90.0 mi W · Morgan
• Rugby91.7 mi W · Morgan

Sources

Sources and credits

1. Wikipedia, "Pressmen's Home, Tennessee", retrieved October 2026: Berry and the Hale Springs Resort, the electricity, the union's departure, the later schemes and Camelot, the post office dates, the buildings and their fates, the chapel and mausoleum, the golf course, the November 2024 fire, and coordinates.
2. Tennessee Encyclopedia, "Publishing" (2017, updated 2018): the 56 years as headquarters, Berry's presidency from 1907 to 1948, 2,700 acres, the technical school and its 3,148 graduates, the sanatorium's 900 patients over 41 years, the hotel, chapel and post office, abandonment in 1967, and the distance from Rogersville.
3. The Rogersville Review, "Care NET wants Pressmen's Home fire chemicals identified, TDEC testing", by Jeff Bobo, December 20, 2024 (read in NewsBreak's syndicated copy, which carries the Review's byline and date; the Review's own site returned HTTP 451 when checked in October 2026): the October 2024 sale, the November 24 fire and evacuation, the suspected trespassers, and what remains of the campus.
4. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits

• Area base map, topo and aerial imagery: USGS The National Map (public domain).
• Historic maps: USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection (public domain): Morristown 1883, 1:125,000; Pressmens Home 1935, 1:24,000; Pressmens Home 1940, 1:24,000; Camelot 1961, 1:24,000; Morristown 1981, 1:100,000.