I don’t think I ever ate at this restaurant. We always ended up at the Golden Dragon on the corner of North Wilcox Drive and East Sevier Avenue. However, there are many complimentary remarks on the web about this eatery that opened in 1970 and closed sometime before 2010.
This 5-column, 3/4-page ad ran on July 21, 1968, in the Kingsport Times-News. I found it when I was going through an old scrapbook. Look! Not a syndicated show in sight; although, the stations did run some NBC and religious programming on the weekends.
I always liked the NBC logo. The microphone is a stylized RCA 44-BX (bi-directional). The WKPT-AM studios used these, since the installation of the equipment after the fire* was supervised by NBC.
*The WKPT studios burned on September 7, 1948, according to the Kingsport Times-News (I misread that date. It was 1946. When I enlarged the page, I saw that it was a “6”, not an “8”, but it was a kind of skeevy 6, at that). The new studio, with all new equipment, opened in ’48.
This was a tough one to scan and clean up. It’s 19.75″ by 9.75″ and, over the years, it’s gone from white to a light ecru, but not a consistent shade. Three people are on the phone in their photographs. I don’t know what to say to that.
I didn’t actually participate in this one. In a later year, I actually got tossed off the telethon because I was singing so badly and loudly. Never did fit in, never will.
Here we area at 3109 Bristol Hi-way in the late 40s or early 50s. Published by Fred W. Stanley, Johnson City, Tenn. It’s a Dextone “Made Direct from Kodachrome and Ansco Color By Dexter Press, Inc. West Nyack, N.J.” Postally unused.
On the back:
MODEL CITY MOTEL
New and Strictly Modern
Located 1 1/2 miles from downtown Kingsport, Tenn. on U.S. Hi-way 11-W. Away from the city noise. For reservations, phone 4309 or write Model City Motel, 3109 Bristol Hi-way, Kingsport, Tenn. Owned and operated by Charlie Chase and James McAinch.
(The “McAinch” is a typo. It should be “McAninch”. In 1959 Charlie Chase and Bobby McAninch were listed as the owners of this bide-a-wee)
As you know, they’ve torn down
This was one of our first strip malls, on Lynn Garden Drive, when it was still the main way to Gate City. Had a Grant’s…had a Kroger…had my stepbrother’s barbershop. It even had a decent common area:
Those trees in back, striving for the sunlight, survived, I hope. Probably just bulldozed over, though. All compound things are impermanent.
Bob Lawrence's Kingsport 