Dobyns-Bennett High School. This card, luckily, was printed by Curt Teich in Chicago and I can read the inventory number to tell when it was printed: 1951. The photo may have been taken in 1950. Again, the coloring is false (the photo was taken in black and white), though the application at the printing company hewed to notes taken by the photographer. Any automobiles or other distractions may have been edited out.
It was published by Blackburn News Agency in Kingsport.
The linen finish on the front, applied during the printing process, is rather heavy handed. I know the company experimented with different linen patterns at times, so this may have been a new plate.
This is a Haynes Publishing postcard (printed by Dexter) from the mid-60s. When the photo was taken, this barrel-roofed building was over 40 years old; it was finished in 1940 as the Kingsport Civic Auditorium and Armory. It was built under the Public Works Administration. If the resolution of the image were better, I might be able to read more of the sign, but I think it’s for a wrestling match. I checked the Times-News archives, but couldn’t match anything up.
I wonder if all the armor, since it’s no longer an “armory, is now down at the library…
Another Haynes Distributing postcard, printed by Dexter, West Nyack NY. On December 4, 1967, that bridge, already 50 years old, collapsed when the driver of a 13.5 ton truck drove onto the 5-ton limit bridge. Someone had helpfully removed the load limit sign on the Long Island side of the bridge. The driver, though quite chilled after the 30-odd foot drop into the South Fork of the Holston River, wasn’t hurt.Afterwards, Eastman firmly opposed rebuilding the bridge, citing things like height, depth, width, water, air, arm-waving and other important considerations.
Since this card was mailed at the Downtowner Motor Inn, which wasn’t completed until 1962, the slightly non-existant postmark is probably 1965.
I’m posting this not because it’s a fine, 1920s postcard, but because it was published by T. J. Stephenson and I finally know pretty much who this was.
T. J. Stephenson was born in 1884 (thereabouts) in Virginia. He was, however, thoroughly Kingsport as a property owner (bought into the Hillcrest property when Federal Dyestuff company went belly up at the end of WWI), merchant (Baylor-Stephenson Furniture Store), an agent (Kingsport Mercantile Agency), member of the Board of Elections, a churchgoer (Broad Street Methodist), a city alderman, a supporter of the WCTU, and more. He seems to have been a pretty straight up guy. His first wife, Maxine, died somewhere in the 1920s. He was listed as “widowed” in the 1930 census. But he was remarried in the next census, to Pauline. T. J., jr. was born in 1908, but died after a “three week illness” in a Knoxville Hospital in 1936. He was working for Tennessee Eastman and, apparently, was well liked. There was another son and a daughter who went to school to learn the comptometer, an early mechanical computer.
Since T. J. Stephenson was interested in Kingsport, my guess is that he is the one who commissioned Tichnor Brothers (out of Cambridge MA) to come take some black-and-white views of the growing city and have postcards printed. The cards were tinted prior to printing according to notes taken by the agent at the time the photos were taken.
I don’t know how many cards are in this series. I have 18 and I know of at least one more.
This postcard is from the early 1960s. It’s a Haynes Distributing card with the photo shot by C. H. Ruth. Ruth and Joyce L. Haynes shot a lot of film in the Kingsport area around 1962.
Note that the visitor center is not there yet. This is nearly 10 years after the dam was finished.
I like the lone tree sticking up on top of that hill.
Calvin Sneed’s posted this 1929 bridge here with all the appropriate descriptions (Calvin knows more about bridges than anyone else I know – given that I don’t actually know a lot of people who have any interest in bridges, but, Calvin, he’s a bridge boffin straight up.) At the time this postcard picture was taken (1961 or 62)*, the bridge was two-way. When I exited the Air Force and got a job, I bought a 1966 Volkswagen. Even with that car, this bridge was a white-knuckler if a truck was coming the opposite way when it was snowing, in the dark. Anyway, I think this bridge is utilitarian, rather than “magnificent”. This view is looking east. In 1969, they built the wider steel bridge, just to this side of this one. Whew.
Incidentally, this bridge replaced a 1900 Pactolus Ferry bridge, which crossed the Holston River near (my correction to earlier prepositions) where the Ft. Patrick Henry Dam is now. Before the bridge, there actually was a ferry there.
*Haynes Distributing Company in Roanoke had their photographer/agent Joyce L. Haynes in this area in 1961 and 1961. Shooting Kodachrome, probably. This type of postcard is called a “chrome”.
The Trade Winds Motel and Restaurant “New in 62”. It was located about .33 mile west of the railroad bridge over 23 between Weber City and Gate City. The lettering on the building is difficult to read, but the center panel seems to read “Dutch Boy Grill”. I remember a Dutch Boy drive-in restaurant beside Munal Clinic (built in 1951) on what was then known as the Johnson City Highway, but I have no idea if this is associated with that one. I find the motel listed in the 1983 Kingsport telephone directory, but lose it after that.
Charles Dean Dalton ran the business early on, but, by the time this picture was taken, in 1962, Clyde and Garland Smith owned it. If you look closely, you’ll see the telephone number is listed as CA 5-8541. Oops. People, you have to proof read anything that comes from a printer before it goes to press. That should be CI(rcle) 5-8541.
This Haynes Distributing Company postcard shows two aircraft sitting on the tarmac: a Fairchild F-27, which Piedmont flew from 1958 to 1967, on the left; and the tail portion of a DC-3, which Piedmont took out of service in 1963.
Since Joyce L. Haynes, the photographer, was undoubtedly an efficient person, I think she took all four of these photographs around the summer of 1962.
I have a number of cards published by Haynes (and printed by Dexter). I think there were at least two series of cards done: the earlier ones with photos taken by Joyce L. Haynes and a later series with photography by C. H. Ruth.
I also think Ms Haynes had a knack for choosing days with brilliant blue skies and fluffy white clouds (The Orb!).
I have several views of downtown Kingsport taken from Cement Hill. Several years ago, when I was new to postcards and rather dismissive of chromes, I thought this was a recent card and, based on seeing the old City Hall, I dated it to the early 60s. But I didn’t realize until later, when I was looking at it again, that I could date it really accurately. The red arrow points to the old City Hall (and library) and the yellow arrow indicates the Downtowner. The Downtowner opened for business in 1961 and The Kingsport Times-News (November, 1962) reported that the old City Hall was mostly demolished. The photo for this card was taken in summer of 1962. It was published by Haynes Distributing Company in Roanoke and was printed in West Nyack NY by Dexter Publishing Company. Joyce L. Haynes took the photo. I’m not turning up any information on Haynes Distributing Company, nor of Joyce L. Haynes. She does, however, show up as the photographer for many postcards of this period.
Bob Lawrence's Kingsport 
