Category Archives: Bob’s photos

Back of the Theater

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This is the back of 119 – 121 Commerce Street as it looks today.  The upper door and balcony give away what it used to be: a movie theater.  It got hot in that projection room and this gave the person running the movie a way got get some relief and, probably in those days, a smoke.  I think the balcony is still in the back of the old State Theater building, too.   (later: I checked behind the old Strand Theater…no balcony there.)

This was the Center Theater.  It existed for about seven years, closing in 1955.

I note that there are three good door crops here and one that’s messed up with the power lines. Old doors can be good subjects.  They don’t move around a lot and there’s always a chance that you’ll be the first and only person to record them.  Gold star material, no lie.

Center Street Restauant

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A 3.75 x 3.75″ ashtray.  Information square is fired on the underside. My mother’s favorite restaurant.  Made their own pies with real meringue, browned on top.  In my 20s, I thought the place was stodgy, but I’d love to have a meal there now.  Food was excellent, waitresses motherly.  And I don’t mean that in any derogatory way.
I think the restaurant began in the early 60s.  In 1953, Jack May was managing both Jack’s Grill in Sullivan Gardens and the Luncheonette at the new Little Store.  Jack and wife Jeanette co-owned Center Street Restaurant and, later, Jack’s Restaurant on Main Street.  There’s a complicated history in all this, but I can’t find a source for it right now.  I’ll update as I learn more.

05/08/2021: Updated time line:

From the late 1940s to 1960, the building at 504 West Center Street was owned by Cardwell and Alberta Hounchell. The original building was a a block building painted white (in the only picture I’ve seen of it) and known at “Center Street Restaurant and Grill”. (When I was a kid, we lived in the apartments at 315 Cherokee Street. In one of the apartments lived a man named “Happy” Hounchell. He was a barber with a shop behind Bingham Furniture on New Street. I wonder if they were related.) (the man and the family, not the furniture store and the barber shop)

An ad in the June 6, 1951, issue of the Kingsport News touts a “completely remodeled” restaurant with pale green walls and gray leatherette upholstery. The current building, though, is shown in the records as having been built in 1952.

In 1979, the restaurant was owned by Gary and Angie Francisco. It closed in August, 1989.

Kingsport, TN WBA

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kptwba

I ran across this at a flea market near Sevierville.  Not being into kegling, I had to look up “WBA” – Women’s Bowling Association.  It was organized in Kingsport in 1954.  I don’t know what year this is from.  The outline of the state of Tennessee is one  inch wide  –  from Memphis to Laurel Bloomery.

I paid a buck for it.  Last of the big spenders…

Willis Supply

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Willis Supply, a subsidiary of Willis Supply of Knoxville, opened its office at 801 East Main Street in 1960.  Its manager was Manford Willis, a native of Kingsport.  The company wholesaled electrical, plumbing and boating supplies.
willis

This is plastic specialty piece that fitted over the dial of your rotary phone.

It has what look like three badly placed thin pieces of paperboard on the back, perhaps there to stabilize the piece. The notch in the lower right accommodated the finger stop (actual name).
I haven’t been able to determine when this company closed, but this item would have been pretty much outdated by the mid-1960s, as the  push button phones took over.

In a 1968 ad supplement to the Kingsport Times-News, this company bragged of “Selling GOOD Products in the Best DAMMED Valley in the World”.

Remember the dial tone?

 

 

 

Bays Mountain Golf Course lighter

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Look in the dictionary for “rough shape” and you’ll see a picture of this lighter.
It’s a “Mi-Lite Korea” issue, probably early 70s.  The lighter is a little over 1-1/2″ wide and a little over 2″ high.  Altogether, it closely resembles a Zippo.
I can, through back issues of the Kingsport newspaper, find Bays Mountain Golf Course, about 2 miles south of Church Hill, in business in 1964.  It’s mentioned as an attraction for the area.  That location would put it somewhere behind McPheeters Bend School.  I think that’s the land that Bays Mountain Park acquired to extend its hiking trails

This once belonged to Sam Assid, who owned a well-regarded custom furniture/restoration/refinishing shop on East Sullivan Street for ages.

JBR Buick GMC

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jbrknife

A 2.25″ pen knife.  These were generally given out to customers or potential customers who were a little above the ordinary “hearty handshake” group.  I’ve received several of these over the years, not from auto dealers, mind you.  The blades will cut butter, once or twice.  After that, the joins begin to decouple.
JBR, owned by the Belle family for three decades,  was absorbed by Courtesy Chevrolet in 2010.
I did at least one remote broadcast from JBR on Lynn Garden Drive.  I was in the showroom, facing the street through those big windows.  It was a morning remote and business was slow. At one point, the manager came over and handed me five one-dollar bills.  “Tell ’em that the next five people who come in for a test drive will get a one-dollar bill,” he said, “that’ll bring some in.”
Sure.  I recall that one guy straggled in after I’d put out the word a couple of times.  The rest of the time, I could almost hear the crickets outside.

I can hear Daffy hissing, “Ingrateth!”

General Shale Brick Display

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generalshale

Back in 2011, before the police got touchy about people wandering around the old General Shale property (there had been a LOT of vandalism), I would walk over there with my camera and take pix of stuff lying about.  This is apparently a display showing the different colors that General Shale could product on exposed brick surfaces.  These are all stringers.  No headers are shown, so I don’t know if they were also treated or if these were just for decorator areas.