It had a population of 5,934 at the 2010 United States census,[8] and is included in the Harriman, Tennessee Micropolitan Statistical Area.

[9] Kingston was named after Major Robert King, an officer at Fort Southwest Point in the 1790s.

The Tennessee General Assembly convened in Kingston that day due to an agreement with the Cherokee, who had been told that if the Cherokee Nation ceded the land that is now Roane County, Kingston would become the capital of Tennessee.

Due to the Confederate occupation of the region, however, this third session, which was scheduled for August 1861, never took place.

[11] In October 1861, William B. Carter and several co-conspirators planned the East Tennessee bridge burnings from a command post in Kingston.

The plant, which consumes roughly 14,000 short tons (13,000 t) of coal daily, can produce up to 1,456 megawatts of electricity.

[14] The plant's 1,000-foot (305 m) smokestacks are a familiar sight to those driving on the Roane County stretch of Interstate 40.

On December 22, 2008, a 40-acre (0.16 km2) impoundment containing fly ash slurry from the power plant broke, spilling more than 1 billion US gallons (3,800,000 m3) of waste into the surrounding area.

[8] As of the 2020 United States census, there were 5,953 people, 2,225 households, and 1,335 families residing in the city.