The Christmas Club was a fairly common deal in the ’60s. This booklet even has a couple of pages where you could add, in very small letters, a list of your loved ones and the loot they’re going to get with your Christmas Club accumulation.
It was still going strong when I began working in ’67, after I returned from my stint in the Air Force. I think I may have set up an account once. I didn’t make a lot of money then and was generally happy just to cover my expenses.
Checking through an estate sale, I saw this and at first I thought it was just a matchbook, then I looked a little closer and this is what it actually is:
Dalton’s Men’s and Women’s Clothing opened in 1956 as Dalton’s Men and Boys Clothing. The original building had a small parking lot to the rear. I would occasionally park there after hours when I was pulling a late shift at WKPT radio. A later renovation subsumed that area.
The store was owned by Maurice and Dot Dalton. They added the women’s section in the 70s. I cannot recall when the store closed.
Back in the 1950s and earlier, these folding fans from the U(sher) O(rlando) Colson Company in Paris, Illinois, were quite the thing. There were dozens of designs, but this one caught the eye of the management of Broadstreet Furniture Company, telephone 150.
This was lent to me by a buddy whose father worked for Eastman. He didn’t have any idea of the date range.
It’s 1 3/4″ wide and 2 1/2″ tall. It doesn’t carry a sterling mark. There are letters on the reverse but they’re badly worn. I can make out “DEPT”. It has a fairly heavy duty pin on the reverse. It weighs 20 grams.
I can’t remember if this was a feature of the first or second iteration of Kingsport Grocery Company. The owners/managers valiantly tried to make a go of the restaurant, but it just didn’t have legs. I fondly remember Benedictine and brandy on a Saturday afternoon…a long time ago.
No mud, no lotus.
In 1963 this location at 1017 West Stone Drive was a spanking new Howard Johnson’s. By 1970 it was a Best Western/Tennesse Motor Lodge, then in 2002 it was Westside Inn. Now it’s off to the dustbin…
Neat little 5.75″ x 2″ presentation piece made by Varney Scale Models, Miami Florida. This dates to pre-1970. Lettering is the same on both sides.
The Original Cheers! Funeatery, operated by Funeateries of Johnson City, came to Kingsport in 1987 and exited in the early 2000s (if you know the date this restaurant actually closed, please leave a comment. thank you). The Johnson City location closed in 1997.
When Cheers! came to Kingsport, it occupied a location formerly housing Ciatti’s Italian Restaurant and Bee Bop’s – a theme restaurant.
In the mid 1920s, this building at 651 West Sullivan Street was the home of King Motor Company, a Studebaker dealership. The owner, E. Ward King, went on to found Mason Dixon Trucking.
In 1929, you could purchase a Studebaker Commander Straight Eight for $1,495. Cars were stored on the second floor, accessed by the ramp out back.
When I was young, this building was a Coca-Cola bottling company. By looking through the front window, you could watch the bottling operation.
This is a 2.25″ pinback promoting Mason Dixon Tank Lines, a division of Mason Dixon Trucking Company, which was in existence until 1984 when the whole company went south after a devastating strike by drivers.
Even the company building on East Stone Drive is gone.
Bob Lawrence's Kingsport 