J. Fred Johnson & Co. was on the corner of Broad and Center Streets in downtown Kingsport. My family didn’t shop there. We tended more toward Belk’s or Penney’s. However, in J. Fred’s, there was a roasted nuts kiosk at the bottom of the escalator that always carried roasted, salted jumbo pecans. A quarter’s worth would do me for an hour or so. For me, that’s a fine memory.
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The Christmas Club was a fairly common deal in the ’60s. This booklet even has a couple of pages where you could add, in very small letters, a list of your loved ones and the loot they’re going to get with your Christmas Club accumulation.
It was still going strong when I began working in ’67, after I returned from my stint in the Air Force. I think I may have set up an account once. I didn’t make a lot of money then and was generally happy just to cover my expenses.
Checking through an estate sale, I saw this and at first I thought it was just a matchbook, then I looked a little closer and this is what it actually is:
Dalton’s Men’s and Women’s Clothing opened in 1956 as Dalton’s Men and Boys Clothing. The original building had a small parking lot to the rear. I would occasionally park there after hours when I was pulling a late shift at WKPT radio. A later renovation subsumed that area.
The store was owned by Maurice and Dot Dalton. They added the women’s section in the 70s. I cannot recall when the store closed.
Back in the 1950s and earlier, these folding fans from the U(sher) O(rlando) Colson Company in Paris, Illinois, were quite the thing. There were dozens of designs, but this one caught the eye of the management of Broadstreet Furniture Company, telephone 150.
This was lent to me by a buddy whose father worked for Eastman. He didn’t have any idea of the date range.
It’s 1 3/4″ wide and 2 1/2″ tall. It doesn’t carry a sterling mark. There are letters on the reverse but they’re badly worn. I can make out “DEPT”. It has a fairly heavy duty pin on the reverse. It weighs 20 grams.
I can’t remember if this was a feature of the first or second iteration of Kingsport Grocery Company. The owners/managers valiantly tried to make a go of the restaurant, but it just didn’t have legs. I fondly remember Benedictine and brandy on a Saturday afternoon…a long time ago.
No mud, no lotus.
In 1963 this location at 1017 West Stone Drive was a spanking new Howard Johnson’s. By 1970 it was a Best Western/Tennesse Motor Lodge, then in 2002 it was Westside Inn. Now it’s off to the dustbin…
Neat little 5.75″ x 2″ presentation piece made by Varney Scale Models, Miami Florida. This dates to pre-1970. Lettering is the same on both sides.
Bob Lawrence's Kingsport 