Category Archives: Kingsport TN ephemera

First Baptist Church

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firstbapfront
This was how First Baptist Church looked in the mid-40s.  There’s a color shot of this around, but it’s a commercial card that has been pretty heavily retouched.  This card was produced by the church.
firstbapverso

upper left:  Picture of L.B. Cobb, the pastor at the time.
First Baptist Church

“Not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” – Matt. 20:28

First Baptist Church, Kingsport, Tennessee, organized 1916, membership 1600, S.S. En. 1180, value of church property $150,000.00.  Annual budget approaches $30,000.00.  Radio ministry: Sundays, 11:00 – 12:00 A. M.; Saturdays, 8:45 – 9:00 A. M., Station WKPT.  L.B. Cobb is the pastor.

(below)

“In the Heart of Kingsport, for the Hearts of Kingsport.”

Oklahoma School

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oklahomaschool
I don’t know who or what owns the copyright on this image.  If I get yelled at, I’ll take it down.
Anyway, this is the 1913 building that housed the first school in Kingsport.  To read more about this building and its history, click here.  Neither this site nor Wolfe’s book on Kingsport gives a hint as to why it’s called Oklahoma, or Oklahoma Grove, school.
Maybe someone named Oklahoma kicked in some seed money…
This image is in the University of Tennessee Volunteer Voices collection, with only the notice that, on the back, is “where Robert E. Lee school now standing”.

The above image and quite a few others appear in this publication:

kptpamphlet

It appears to have been published (Watson Lithographing) as a 1967 50th anniversary promo piece by the Chamber of Commerce (not mentioned in the booklet).  Nothing is copyrighted and no photo credits are shown at all.  It is a standard 8.5″ x 11″ size. Great pictures, though (I can see where I live in this cover photo).

Grier’s Almanac

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almanac
I vaguely remember Cole (we called it Cole’s) Drug Store on Broad Street.  Later, it was off Sullivan Street, next to The Little Store.  It became Revco, then waved bye-bye as it decamped to Stone Drive as a CVS.
The ads in the almanac are cheerfully non-pc (“Throw Away That Truss!”) (“Eyeglasses By Mail”). Just right in your face (“Develop a He-man Voice”…buy looser underpants?).

Extract Plant and Tannery

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kptextract
This place only existed from 1912 to 1926.  It was below what became Mead paper, which used wood pulp from this plant to, well, surprise, make paper.
The card is postally unused, but, by looking at the dates above, I would hazard a guess that it dates to the early 20s.  It’s an Asheville Post Card Company issue, 54952.

Oh, hey, antique dealers?  Please don’t write your price and stuff on the back of cards.  I know you tell me that it can be erased.  No, it can’t and it mars the card to try to do so.  So, there.

Community Y

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communityy

COMMUNITY “Y,” CENTER AND SHELBY STREETS, KINGSPORT, TENN.

On the back:

Pub. by T. J. Stephenson, Kingsport, Tenn.

(Plate number) 121036

Printed by Tichnor Quality Views (Boston Mass.)  (here’s a link to their Tennessee issues)

Notes: This is the Shelby Street side.  I remember the open porch.  That part of the building was the Public Library in 1957.  The rest of the building housed City Hall offices.

Earliest confirmed postmark date I have for this series is 1926.  I also have post dates into the ’40s, so they hung around for quite a while.

 

Another Kingsport Book

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kptrotarybook
Published shortly after 1962, this 9″x12″ unpaginated book was wholly a product of Kingsport.  Paper by Mead, binding fabrics by Holliston Mills, and with typography, printing and binding by Kingsport Press.  It was authored by Ben Haden and designed by J. Fred Wright.
The book has no copyright date, but I couldn’t find any date in the text past 1962.  I assume it was produced as a promotional piece for the far-ranging Kingsport  boosters (there were many).  It features some interesting pictures, along with bios of the prominent men – and only men – of the time.  There’s also a fine picture of Charlie Deming of WKPT-AM.  Although he was basically a morning personality and sometimes sports announcer, he’s shown working a mike at the passenger side door of the station mobile unit.  Marty must have been out of town…

The Kingsport Rotary Club has been a major force in keeping a published record of Kingsport as it grew.  Their first 4.5″x7″ book “Kingsport Tennessee City of Industry Schools Churches Homes” (green cover) was published in 1937.

The second book “Kingsport Tennessee The Planned Industrial City” (blue cover) came out in 1946.

The third book (tan cover), with the same title as the 1946 book, was published in 1951.  It was edited by Bill Freehoff, who was then with the Kingsport Times-News.  (He was working in the news department at Holston Valley Broadcasting when I hired on there in 1967)

In my opinion, the best book about Kingsport’s history is Margaret Ripley Wolfe’s “Kingsport Tennessee A Planned American City” (1987, University of Kentucky Press).  It can be a trifle arid at times, but she writes well and handles the material in good order.

Lest I forget: “KINGSPORT A Romance of Industry” by Howard Long, came out in 1928.  Published by The Sevier Press, Kingsport, Tennessee, it’s not a scholarly piece, but is worth reading, if only for the sense of optimism that prevailed in these few years preceding the Great Depression.

At The Inn

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kingsportinn
This rather well-produced post card, from the 1940s, appears to show a recreation room at the Kingsport Inn.  There are a doughty fireplace,  a radio set, a piano, game boards and chairs, an American flag and ashtrays everywhere. You can just see into the next room through the door.  The door to that room is open and there looks to be a window beyond the door.
I had dinner once at the Inn.  I was competing in the Optimist Oratorical Contest.  I didn’t win, but I had a good meal…roast beef, I think, and mashed potatoes.  That I remember, but as to what vegetable or dessert was served or what the interior of the Inn actually looked like, I have no clue.
Five or six years ago, while working on some project or another, I ran into the man who had been our coach for the contest.  He vaguely remembered me.  “I didn’t think you’d come to be anything,” he remarked.  I was a bit stung at first, then I thought, “Well, up yours, dude.  I did just fine, thank you.”
This card had been mounted in a scrap book, held in place by paper corners.  When the card was removed, some of the paper remained on the corners of the card.
On the back upper left is: KINGSPORT INN Kingsport, Tennessee.
It was printed by the Albertype Company in Brooklyn.