These are from an unopened deck of promotional playing cards produced by Carta Mundi (“Cards for the World”) when the company had a location at 10444 Wallace Alley Street in Kingsport from 1996 to 2007.
According to a business website, Carta Mundi provided wholesale playing cards, game books, lotto games, memory games, game kits, educational games, board games, playing cards, video games, puzzles, dice, and classic games.
The facility moved to Dallas in 2007.
I picked this up at Kingsport Camera Shop, then on Cherokee Street, at some point while I was drooling over the new Nikon cameras. This was when photographers were beginning to acknowledge that the Japanese were rolling out excellent cameras and lenses. Single-lens reflex cameras were still fairly new in 1969 (a year earlier, I had shot Pentax SLRs at the Times-News).
Look at those prices, which I thought were sky high even then. This is just the cover. The leaflet goes on to price lenses, camera bags, medical lenses, viewfinders, photomicrographic lenses and so forth. Prices range from a high of $895 for a 220 degree Nikkor fisheye (f5.6) to fifty cents for a plastic case for a 52mm filter. The plastic body cap ran you $1.35.
When I returned to Kingsport in 1967, fresh from a posting in Germany while in the care of the United States Air Force, I needed to get myself a driver’s license. I asked Dad to drive me to the Highway Patrol office on Brooks Circle, where I picked up this manual to study for my license test.
Complete with these charmingly archaic illustrations.
The photo of Governor Clement apparently had been taken sometime before the 1963 – 1964 General Assembly (it appeared in their program). He was governor from 1963 – 1967, his second term, so I suspect that this manual, complete with the clunky diagrams, was published in 1963 or so, in plenty of time for me to pick it up in 1967.
Later, I took the test, driving Dad’s old Chevy. Passed it and then only drove Dad’s car into a ditch once before buying my own (regrettable) Corvair.
According to usinflationcalculator.com, a dollar in 1954 would be equal to $9.62 in 2020.
Gosh, costs have increased a bit since then, huh?
This badge, shown as made by Stoffel Seals of Nyack NY, is undated. However, Stoffel Seals moved to Tallapoosa GA sometime in the early 2000’s and was acquired by TydenBrooks in 2010. Check the link for all the gory details.
Interestingly (to me), Stoffel Seals made almost all of the domestic airline “kiddie wings” during the heyday of air travel. I ought to know, since I’ve got a ton of them.
This is what your bill from J. Fred’s would have looked like in 1954
In 1918, as WWI slowly ground to a halt in Europe and the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic began raging out of the foul trenches of that war, Kingsport was building its first combined school building. The building, much remodeled, still stands at the corner of Watauga Street and East Sevier Avenue.
This post card, probably printed in the early 1920s, is another of the series commissioned by T. J. Stephenson.
I don’t think I ever ate at this restaurant. We always ended up at the Golden Dragon on the corner of North Wilcox Drive and East Sevier Avenue. However, there are many complimentary remarks on the web about this eatery that opened in 1970 and closed sometime before 2010.
This Kingsport Intermountain Telephone Directory was issued in July, 1946. These are two of the three pages of restaurant listings compiled probably in late spring or early summer of ’46. The Center Street Grill building became Center Street Restaurant, then the AAA Office and others.
“Chat & Chew Grill”?!?
Just out of curiosity, I wondered who had the lowest number listing in the directory and it turned out to be Hutchwallen Florists at number 1. Hutchwallen (it’s spelled that way in the directory) was located directly in front of the train station, where that patch of flowers is now.
I couldn’t find a listing for number 2, but Huff Funeral Home and Ambulance Service – at Charlemont and Watuaga – had 3, General Shale Sales Office had 4 and Clinchfield Railroad Company Ticket Agent had 5.
The directory is a fascinating glimpse of the business community in Kingsport as the nation came out of WWII.
This post card, printed by Tichnor in the early 1920s, shows the Homestead Hotel about three or four years after it was constructed. This series, as previously noted, was commissioned by Kingsport businessman T. J. Stephenson.
Bob Lawrence's Kingsport 