Category Archives: Kingsport TN ephemera

Greenwood Motel

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greenwoodmotel

The photo for this postcard was taken in the mid-50s, as far as I can tell.
It’s still there, more or less, but it’s for sale as of the date of this posting.  In the 1959 City Directory, this motel is listed as being owned by Esther D. and Pratt A. Hegler.

On the front: (in a cursive typeface) Greenwood Motel
(sanserif) 1840 Ft. Henry Drive KINGSPORT, TENNESSEE

On the back:

(the first part is the same as on the front)

Phone CI 6-6187
On U. S. 11W – 23 Hwys.
-Kingsport’s Most Luxurious Motel –
Beautyrest Mattresses – Ceramic Tile Baths with Tubs and Showers –
Air Conditioned – Room Phones – Free 21″ TV – Wall to Wall Carpet –
Electric Heat- Room Thermostats – Shaded Grounds – Children’s Swings – Picnic Table

The card is a TichnorGloss QUALITY VIEWS. REG. U. S. PAT. OFF. MADE ONLY BY TICHNOR BROS. INC. BOSTON 15 MASS.

 

Plate number is G89859

Cancerama 1973

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cancerama1973

This was a tough one to scan and clean up.  It’s 19.75″ by 9.75″ and, over the years, it’s gone from white to a light ecru, but not a consistent shade.  Three people are on the phone in their photographs.  I don’t know what to say to that.
I didn’t actually participate in this one.  In a later year, I actually got tossed off the telethon because I was singing so badly and loudly.  Never did fit in, never will.

Model City Motel

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modelcitymotel
Here we area at 3109 Bristol Hi-way in the late 40s or early 50s.  Published by Fred W. Stanley, Johnson City, Tenn. It’s a Dextone “Made Direct from Kodachrome and Ansco Color By Dexter Press, Inc. West Nyack, N.J.”  Postally unused.

On the back:

MODEL CITY MOTEL
New and Strictly Modern
Located 1 1/2 miles from downtown Kingsport, Tenn. on U.S. Hi-way 11-W.  Away from the city noise. For reservations, phone 4309 or write Model City Motel, 3109 Bristol Hi-way, Kingsport, Tenn.  Owned and operated by Charlie Chase and James McAinch.

(The “McAinch” is a typo.  It should be “McAninch”.  In 1959 Charlie Chase and Bobby McAninch were listed as the owners of this bide-a-wee)

The Downtowner Motor Inn

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downtowner

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.

Borden Mills

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bordenmills

Look at all the windows!  This E.G Kropp (Milwaukee) post card carries a Kingsport postmark for July, 1937.
It was mailed to Eccles, WV. The message, in a somewhat cramped script:

Hello! Honey! Read your last letter yesterday. We came to Norton last Friday. Sue, M.F. and my-self came to Kingsport Tuesday.  Sue & M.F. have (something, something…I’m working on it – the script is hard to read).  Will go  home Monday.  Will write a letter then. Love, Mama

The Last of the Big Store

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bigstoreburn

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.

Midnight Sun

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midnightsun

A long time ago, I began the first permanent rock show on WKPT-AM.  John Dotson had “Sounds of Summer” the previous year, but it ended when he went back to school or left town or something.  It was a good show and broke the Easy Listening hold on that staid, NBC-affiliated station.  So, I swooped in the next year, ditched “Teenage Terrace”, (which I had been on when I was in high school, from 5:00 to 6:00 pm, as I recall, with Marty running the board and we students, when we showed up, sitting at the table in the news studio) and had the 6:00 pm to midnight slot all to myself as “The Midnight Sun”.
Since this was before 8-track tapes in cars became widely available, I was a success, as it were, with the kids cruising Broad Street.  Then, the tapes came and I eventually moved into the afternoon Drive Time slot.  The fact that, for the most part, I had to buy my own records for the show and management had the nerve to put out something like this cloth sticker: “Like it is”, my ass.  The phrase was a joke by this time.
The ellipse is 4″ on the horizontal axis and 2-1/2″ on the vertical.

The Famous Rotherwood Farm

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thefamousrotherwoodfront

“The famous Rotherwood Farm at the junction of the North and South Forks of the Holston River”   bottom: “Kingsport, Tenn. in the distance”

This is one of a series of cards published by T.J. Stephenson, Kingsport, Tenn.
I have 20 unduplicated cards of this series and I know there are more.  The earliest postmark I’ve found is 1925 and the latest is 1942.  They were around for a while.
The cards were printed in Cambridge MA under the “Tichnor Quality View” name.

Here’s the back:

thefamousrotherwoodback

The plate numbers on the cards I have run from 121027 to 121042 (I don’t have all of them).

Downtown Kingsport

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dwntownkpt

This Duotone card’s picture was taken, I think, around 1915 or 16 from about halfway up Cement Hill.  The street to the left is Shelby, with the Big Store on the left.  The bank, the building with the columns, is on the corner of Broad and Main. Note there’s no Church Circle, but there is the old school and the old Presbyterian Church just to the right of where Shelby ends at Sullivan.
It looks as if someone at the publishing company (CT – Curt Teich –  in Chicago) inked in some of the fainter lines of the buildings in the background, which makes it harder to identify them.  However, I think the building I live in is there.
This card was “published by Kingsport Drug Store”.  Standard double-back for the time.  Typical penny postcard.

Kingsport Pulp Corp.

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kptpulpco

Since this shows the facility in the process of being built, I think one could safely date this picture to around 1915.  This plant went on line in 1916 and was acquired by Mead in 1920.

I have a couple of these blue-tint cards.  Surprisingly, there is absolutely no photo or publisher credit anywhere on them.  These are divided back, white border cards which were in vogue between 1915 and 1929.