This postcard, from the 1970s, was printed by Koppel Post Card Company of Hawthorne NJ. Carl Swann was a local professional photographer.
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Category Archives: Kingsport TN ephemera
Warriors’ Path (early)
It’s actually 950 acres, according to current information. This is mid- to late-60s.
Tennessee acquired the land for the park in 1952. Fort Patrick Henry Lake was fully impounded in 1953.
Looking over old maps of this area, I found that Duck Island didn’t exist, as an island, before the impounding of the lake. It was just the eastern shore of the South Fork of the Holston River above Wexler Bend. And somewhere in there, it got ducks.
Kingsport Oil Specialty
Kingsport Oil Company, the area Shell gasoline distributor, was founded in 1946 by, I think, A. R. Brashear, Jr. In the 50s, he traveled in the rarified air of bank directors and committee chairmen. And judging from a quick scan of newspaper archives, the company was a ball of fire when it came to giveaways and contests. At one point, in the early 50s, they gave away a new car. This 2.5 x 4″ handy (it’s been used!) little sewing kit was probably thrust at you when you filled up the tank in your merry Oldsmobile.
The Brabant Needle Company, Ltd., of Redditch, England, is long gone. There was a Duchy in Germany held by the Duke of Brabant, fwiw.
The generous-hearted Carl Swann gave this to me. And it was much appreciated, since it’s getting harder and harder finding Kingsport stuff lying in the open.
Methodist Church
This postcard, copyright 1964, was published by the Colorcraft Studios in New York. I can’t find any information about this company, but it was credited with a lot of 1964/1965 World’s Fair postcards. On the back: BROAD STREET METHODIST CHURCH P.O. Box 907 Kingsport, Tennessee 37662
First Broad Street United Methodist Church, 50 years later.
Olde West
Home of beef tips and noodles and earnest actors on the dinner theater circuit. The inside reads, white letters on red, “Olde West Dinner Theatre Airport Road. Hwy. 75
call: Johnson City.. 928-2121 Kingsport…323-4151
Open Tuesday thru Saturday
Buffet from 7 til 8
Curtain 8:30
My first job after I came back from my Air Force stint was for Joan Hensley at Olde West.
I wanted to design sets. She had no budget. Shortly, I went to work at the Times-News.
Broad Street, 1946
Summer, 1946. Looking toward Church Circle. The movie playing at the State Theatre is “The Enchanted Forest” (Maltin gives it 2-1/2 stars), released in December, 1945.
The war had been over for a year.
This is a real photo postcard (RPP). EKC paper (available from 1939 – 1950).
Shelby Street Apartments
Early morning, sometime around 1925. It’s another T.J. Stephenson card…I’ve posted information about him here. (Nothing special on the back, except the inventory number of 121035…the lowest number of these cards I have is 121023 and the highest is 121042. It’s a Tichnor Quality Views card)
I think these were all residential then. When I delivered papers down this street in 1957, there were several businesses along the way. Whenever I catch the smell of kneaded erasers, my memory escorts me back to an art supply store about halfway down the street. I’ve mentioned before that my dream was to have all the illustration board I wanted. Got there. Did that.
Oh, look, Ma! No antennas on Bays Mountain. Obviously.
Sobel’s
I thank Carl Swann for this item. Its age is indeterminate. The “Sobel’s The Men’s Store” appears to have been hot stamped onto the shoehorn. “Shoehorn” is an old word, dating back to the late Middle Ages, as a “schoying horne” (it’s all in Wikipedia)…a “horn” in the sense of a tool, made of horn – the plastic of its day, to help put on a shoe. There were various sizes (long ones for boots); this one is 3.5″ long.
Nunn Bush shoes are still distributed by Weyco in Wisconsin…Weyco is essentially a Florsheim operation since 1964. Weyco claims a founding date of 1892. Nunn Bush was established by Henry LIghtfoot Nunn in 1912. I don’t know what happened to Bush. I can’t find a reference. Really, his middle name was “Lightfoot”? Too punny.
When I was in the Air Force, we had the opportunity to purchase Florsheim dress shoes. For whatever reason, most all of us had gone back to our Government-issue shoes in six months or so. The Florsheims just didn’t hold up well (this was back in the mid-60s).
Trading Stamps – The Fever
If you wish to brush up on your history of S&H Green Stamps, head over here, Otherwise, read on about K-Savers trading stamps.
This is the book you’d stick your K-Savers stamps in, all notated (as far as I know) as worth 25 units of something. The book is 3-3/4″ by 5-7/8″. The stamps, shown below, each measure 1/2″ x 1-7/8″.
In the 1950s, Oakwood Markets, dating from the late 40s, was seeing a bubbling up of Green Stamp Fever, fed by market competitor Giant Supermarkets. Figuring to find a parade and get in front of it (a favorite suggestion of Don Raines, my former boss), Wallace Boyd, one of the founders of Oakwood Markets, started Tennessee Stamp Company and began to spread K-Saver stamps across their multiple locations (11 or so in the 70s). K-Savers had a catalog and a brick-and-mortar store at 813 Eastman Road – the site, next to Sloopy’s, is now home to a gas station.
Inside front cover, showing part of a stamp page, and inside of the back cover.
1157 Eastman Road was the location of the Oakwood Market in Greenacres Shopping Center. And note there are none of the legal conditions (you don’t own the stamps!) that S&H put on the back cover of their redememption booklets.
WKPT Studio
I’m taking a chance here, but I think this was taken before the fire that severely damaged the WKPT studios. I don’t recognize the studio configuration or that strange wall treatment.
I didn’t have any luck tracking down when Pilgrims Songs sheet music was published, but the microphone is a Western Electric 639 or so, made in the late 1930s (after 1941, it would have been branded as an Altec). This mike, or one like it, was still around when I was at WKPT. People had their preferences as to the setting. I liked cardioid and got fussed at one time for switching it. Today, these mikes are selling for around $600 to $800 on ebay.
There is nothing of interest on the back of this card…no publisher, no photographer attribution. Annoying.
Bob Lawrence's Kingsport 
