The now former site of Ward’s Feed Store on Revere Street.
For years, this store was on the corner of Cherokee and Main.
This was the old paint-up sign on Cherokee.
Moving Right Along…
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Category Archives: Bob’s photos
The Downtowner Motor Inn
Architect’s rendering of the not-quite-yet built Downtowner Motor Inn, corner of Center and Shelby Streets in downtown Kingsport. It was announced in the Kingsport Times-News in 1960 and was probably open for business in 1961. Having a Downtowner was a big deal at the time. The only other one in Tennessee was in Memphis. This one lasted until the early 1990s. At some time in the 70s, I took my mother to the restaurant there to have breakfast. I found a cockroach in my biscuit.
The Downtowner corporation began in 1958 in Memphis. At one time, it was owned by Perkins Pancake House and then changed hands several times until it mostly went belly up in 1993.
When I first came to Kingsport in 1956, this lot was empty. You could look out the back door of the Kress building and see the old City Hall on the west corner of Shelby and Center. Hinch Gilliam had a cab stand up on the Market-Shelby corner on this lot.
There must be hundreds of copies of this card. They’re all over the web for sale at prices ranging from $10 to $24 each. I probably paid a buck when I bought this one a decade or so ago.
Early Air Conditioner
Back before the now ubiquitous air conditioning units became common on business rooftops, these structures dominated. This unit, which used to be on top of the Variety Printing building (formerly one of two downtown locations of Mack Ray Cafeteria…the other was on Commerce Street in the old Harry Mills Motors, across from WKPT), cooled the inside air by evaporation. Inside this louvered, wooden structure was a coiled pipe through which air was pumped. Water was sprayed over the coil, thus cooling the air by evaporation. Something akin to the effect you’d get from a wet t-shirt, if the only reason you were wearing a wet t-shirt was to cool off. And if you had a breeze of some sort.
At any rate, I would often get lightly sprinkled with water walking down the alley, if the breeze (mentioned before) was blowing the right direction.
Why was I in the alley? Going around to Wallace News, of course.
Note the (ha!) stabilizing wires. Such strength.
Canal Street
Before the likes of George Carter and J. Fred Johnson strode the land, the area now hosting downtown Kingsport was a wetland, a marsh, a swamp. A good place for hunting rabbits, it’s said.
Not a particularly good place to site a new town, so, two ditches were dug, one to the west and one to the east, to escort the water out of the downtown basin and off to somewhere else.
So here is Canal Street. It’s actually a cut-and-cover culvert: the western ditch. It comes out here:
This is on Reedy Creek, next to the old Irpco (sounds kind of like a burp, no?), which, in my memory, was the old Coca-Cola bottling company on West Sullivan Street.
The Last of the Big Store
In November, 1985, the building that once housed The Big Store burned down. The Big Store was an all-in-one place; even the Post Office was there. It was said you could go from birth to death at The Big Store. J. Fred Johnson’s, which is now a furniture store on the west corner of Broad and Center, was a spin off, as was Hamlett-Dobson Funeral Home.
Judging from the shadows, I must have gotten there early in the morning, but it appears the firefighters had everything pretty much under control by then.
Plaza Say Gone
As you know, they’ve torn down
This was one of our first strip malls, on Lynn Garden Drive, when it was still the main way to Gate City. Had a Grant’s…had a Kroger…had my stepbrother’s barbershop. It even had a decent common area:
Those trees in back, striving for the sunlight, survived, I hope. Probably just bulldozed over, though. All compound things are impermanent.
Down On The Corner
This is on the corner of Fairview and West Sullivan. Back in the 50s, this was Barker’s Grocery. The owners lived upstairs. Down from it somewhere was a Yellow Front Market. There were a number of homes and small businesses here once, before the city decided that the increase in traffic warranted a complete redo of that area where Sullivan Street goes under the railroad. The roads in the area; West Sullivan Street, West Center Street and Ft. Robinson Drive, were also rerouted slightly.
The home next to the building is of the period, also. It’s not in this picture, but if you look carefully, should you be idly passing by this area sometime, you’ll see a stonework gatepost with the original iron still in it just west of the brick house. I suspect it was the entrance once to the Roller property.
Piercy – Baker Realtors
Piercy – Baker opened this office in 1953. It was at 1701 Ft. Henry Drive at Brooks Circle.
Behind it are, as you may have noticed, Cherokee Boat Company and Motor Sales Company of Kingsport, both presided over by Myrtle C. King, with Clifford V. Bryant Sec Treas. John L. Mitchell was in charge of boats, motors and fishing equipment at Cherokee, while Mrs. Anna A. Hester was asst. sec trucks at Motor Sales. That building is listed as being on Eastman Road. The Pot O’ Gold, then just a delicatessen, presided over by James A. Brockman, was at 1713 Ft. Henry Drive.
The postcard picture was taken by Fred W. Stanley of Johnson City, printed by our old friends Dexter Press on West Nayak NY. Inventory number 73775.
Interestingly, it appears that Kingsport was recovering from a snow storm when this picture was taken. Note the wet asphalt and, to the left, what appears to be leftover snow.
Porterfield City Feed
This is 469 West Sullivan Street. In 1959, this was Porterfield City Feed Company, next to City Poultry and Egg Company. CP&ECo was on the corner of Sullivan and what was then Island Street (It’s now Mission Street). The buildings are no longer there.
When I was a kid, I had a paper route in downtown Kingsport. One year, the Kingsport Times-News, then located on Market Street, held some sort of contest and I ended up winning a certificate for a turkey from CP&Eco, just in time for Thanksgiving. It was, as I recall, a mingy turkey, but it was quite welcome, since my stepdad wasn’t having a particularly good year. My stepdad never had a particularly good year.
Old Kingsport Drug Stores
Couple of Kingsport drug store pill boxes I picked up somewhere.
Bob Lawrence's Kingsport 