Category Archives: Kingsport TN ephemera

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.

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.