This post card was printed in 1950, as shown by the Curt Teich date code. On the apron are DC-3s from American Airlines and Piedmont. American would fly away from the airport two years later, but Piedmont would hang in there for the duration.
Courtesy of Carl Swann.
Heritage Federal Savings and Loan Association, 110 East Center Street, started out in 1930 and meandered on until 1981, when somebody kicked off a flurry of acquisitions (read all about it here). It officially lost the name in 1995 when it was acquired by First American National Bank, now part of Regions Bank.
The logo, which is partially cut off in this shot, is a symbolic Minuteman haloed by, guess what, 13 stars. Heritage, get it?
One snowy evening, around 1957 or 1958, as I was sloshing my way down to the library, which was then on the corner of East Center and Shelby Streets, I saw Martin Karant doing a live remote in the big window at Heritage Federal. He was soliciting money for some organization. I walked in and volunteered to help (I was quite young at the time). I stood outside, in the snow, for a half hour or so and offered a canister for people to put coins in. In those years, there were quite a few people out walking around downtown in the evenings, shopping and so forth.
Courtesy of Carl Swann
Difficult to date this. Since there’s no ZIP code and “Tenn.” is used instead of “TN”, I’d guess pre-1963.
The “Kingsport Press, Inc.” is stamped on.
The Abbott Coin Counting Company made coin sorting machines from about 1917 or so. It’s now in Connecticut.
If you find a $3 dime coin wrapper, grab it. They’re rare.
Check this out:
This is from 1979, just a year or so after Bic introduced the disposable razor in the US market. So, it probably seemed a good idea for a giveaway item, maybe.
My corporate legal department would clutch their pearls at this now…
It’s a standard, 4″ size.
This postcard, from the 1970s, was printed by Koppel Post Card Company of Hawthorne NJ. Carl Swann was a local professional photographer.
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.
Back in June of 1967, I was working as a photographer for the Kingsport Times-News. I got dispatched to this service station, then known as Smith Shell, to photograph the aftermath of an accident: a lady driving away from getting gas snagged the hose of one of the pumps. The pump overturned, electrical connections were severed and a fire ensued, quickly extinguished by the Kingsport Fire Department. By the time I got there, the fire was out and the KFD was mopping up.
I just looked up the photo I took. It’s at newspapers.com.
The station was built in 1955 by J.D. Smith. I remember him well, but from the 1980s or so.
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.
Ran across this in Johnson City. It poses a problem for me. This gas station was next to Craft Motors on Sullivan Street. The fully numeric telephone number places it no earlier than the mid-1960s. But I have absolutely no memory of what the place looked like and I’ve lived downtown for most of my adult life. It amazes me how much I don’t really see around me (I mean, I know the way the eyes process and edit input, but it’s still amazing what I miss).
Bob Lawrence's Kingsport 