This building, at 519 Holston Street, housed one of the first clinics in Kingsport. It was also the home of Charlie Deming, the man who helmed “The Gloomchaser” morning show on WKPT-AM from the early 1940s to 1973. This was taken in 1991. The building has long since been demolished.
Published shortly after 1962, this 9″x12″ unpaginated book was wholly a product of Kingsport. Paper by Mead, binding fabrics by Holliston Mills, and with typography, printing and binding by Kingsport Press. It was authored by Ben Haden and designed by J. Fred Wright.
The book has no copyright date, but I couldn’t find any date in the text past 1962. I assume it was produced as a promotional piece for the far-ranging Kingsport boosters (there were many). It features some interesting pictures, along with bios of the prominent men – and only men – of the time. There’s also a fine picture of Charlie Deming of WKPT-AM. Although he was basically a morning personality and sometimes sports announcer, he’s shown working a mike at the passenger side door of the station mobile unit. Marty must have been out of town…
The Kingsport Rotary Club has been a major force in keeping a published record of Kingsport as it grew. Their first 4.5″x7″ book “Kingsport Tennessee City of Industry Schools Churches Homes” (green cover) was published in 1937.
The second book “Kingsport Tennessee The Planned Industrial City” (blue cover) came out in 1946.
The third book (tan cover), with the same title as the 1946 book, was published in 1951. It was edited by Bill Freehoff, who was then with the Kingsport Times-News. (He was working in the news department at Holston Valley Broadcasting when I hired on there in 1967)
In my opinion, the best book about Kingsport’s history is Margaret Ripley Wolfe’s “Kingsport Tennessee A Planned American City” (1987, University of Kentucky Press). It can be a trifle arid at times, but she writes well and handles the material in good order.
Lest I forget: “KINGSPORT A Romance of Industry” by Howard Long, came out in 1928. Published by The Sevier Press, Kingsport, Tennessee, it’s not a scholarly piece, but is worth reading, if only for the sense of optimism that prevailed in these few years preceding the Great Depression.
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.
Bob Lawrence's Kingsport 