I was walking by the engineer’s annex (Don Gibson’s former desk at WJCW) and I spotted this:
Bet this one’s been around for a while.
Another RESCO Item
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Bechtel Eastman becon buckle
My buddy ran across this at a flea market. It’s made by Anacortes Brass Works in Anacortes WA, which went out of business 2016 (owner retired). The buckle is around 3″ x 2.5″. The brass works has a website showing many of their buckles, but this one isn’t listed.
Old topographic maps
If you’re a map nerd, like I am, check out http://www.oldmapsonline.org
It’s free to use and has 1935 and later topos of Kingsport. They’re fascinating. They’ve been scanned at very good resolution, so zooming in is no problem.
Batclub!
WKPT-TV kicked up its bombazine skirts in the late ’60s to get down with the bat crowd. Someone came up with this club idea.
If you joined the club, you got two things: this pin and ignored.
Flying rodents. O u kid.
RESCO Rules!
Radio Electric Supply Co. (RESCO) was THE place for electronics when I was starting out in Radio. They had everything, or could get it quickly for you. This shows them at 961 East Sullivan Street in Kingsport and this is where I remember them. At the station where I worked, it was standard practice to answer any query as to where the engineer was with “You checked RESCO?”
However, in 1945, the company is listed at 210 Cherokee Street (near the alley behind the bank) (across from where Kingsport Camera Shop used to be), you know the place.
This little measuring tape (I haven’t chanced pulling the tape out to see how long it is) was made in Hong Kong. That the trademark is “HONG KONG” and not “Made in Hong Kong” places this in the ’60s.
Pen staff, Kingsport Inn
I rescued this pen staff (it’s just one; I rotated it so you could see the whole graphic on the staff) as the Kingsport Inn was being demolished. A buddy and I, we both lived downtown, went over one evening to explore the building. It was partially razed, but the lobby and some of the rooms were still accessible. There was no security that we saw. We wandered around and looked at stuff. I remember finding a room rate card, but it’s been lost in one of many transitions.
To use this, one would insert a steel nib, dip the pen in an inkwell, and sign your name with a scratchy flourish, or not. Really, casual handwriting has hardly improved.
Kingsport TN from Cement Hill
“A BIRD’S EYE VIEW OF KINGSPORT, TENN., FROM “THE CEMENT HILL”
This postcard is interesting for several reasons, the first being that it was actually used, so there’s a postmark on the back. It was mailed in 1931 from Kingsport by a couple passing through on the way to Knoxville and addressed to a lady in Reidsville North Carolina, R.F.D. #6.
It’s also a reasonably scarce issue by T.J. Stephenson of Kingsport (he took the picture) and printed by Tichenor Dual Views (Tichenor Brothers of Cambridge MA), plate #121031. You don’t have to look very carefully to see that it is a black & white photograph that’s been rather crudely colored in by the publisher. Stephenson had a whole line of postcards with pictures of Kingsport taken in the mid- to late-20s. I love these cards and don’t have all in the series. I saw one of Catawba Street that I so badly wanted to snatch out of the owner’s hand and sprint off with, but, sadly, I didn’t.
Couple of murals
These are both on Center Street. The Warranty Mower Repair mural is a pro job by Murals and More, the other is behind The Fire Escape club and is not.
Penley’s (Funtastics)
This building, on the corner of Roller and Sullivan Streets, is gone now. The area around the newly-developed former Kingsport Press/Quebecor lots is now catnip for developers. Of course, that will also do away with this example of primitive wall art.
Kingsport Milling
This was earlier known as “Gibson Mill” or “Gibson’s Mill” (after one Andrew Gibson, who also gave his name to this area, called Gibsontown). This mill burned in March, 2010.
Bob Lawrence's Kingsport 