Tag Archives: Kingsport TN

Center and Cherokee

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Now that Bank of Tennessee is breaking forth from the constraints of the past and is going to land a big new footprint, so to speak, on the half-block of land they own between Cherokee and Cumberland with Center Street frontage.  This is what that area looked like around 1975.

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It’s got crappy resolution.  I was living in a, er, low-rent apartment at the time and was playing around with a Polaroid camera I’d bought somewhere.  Anyway, this shows the corner of Cherokee Street (see the Kingsport Camera Shop sign mid right?  That’s all been taken over by that other bank) and Center.  There was a service station there, and one across the street.  They used to everywhere, for some reason.   Like pharmacies now.
The tower just under the wires on the right is where the telephone company is.
Roberts Tire & Recapping occupies the buildings low in the picture.

Holston River Bridge

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“K.24 BRIDGE OVER HOLSTON RIVER ON U.S. 23, BETWEEN KINGSPORT AND JOHNSON CITY, TENN”

Verso: He (unreadable) Since I didn’t send that card from Knoxville I promised you, I will send you one today as we are in Johnson City having a swell time.  Marie

Mailed to Miss (?Nepall?) Rader, Route 2, Greeneville, Tenn.

PM: Johnson City August 10, 1945.

Work didn’t begin on Ft. Patrick Henry Dam until six years later.  The person who took this picture was probably in a boat or had water wings on or something.  This is looking south, more or less.

Hello, Bank!

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Construction work brings to light the facade of a structure built in 1927 at 209 Broad Street.  The date is in the escutcheon above the remains of the front door. Originally, there were white columns on either side of the building, in front of the facade.

There was a building boom on Broad Street in 1927 and both Kingsport National Bank and this, The Farmers and Merchants Bank, opened up around June of that year.  In 1945, it became Sullivan County Bank. At some later date, it was home to Harris & Graves Insurance.  By 1959, it was the Moore & Walker Insurance building.

Garrett & Garrett Attorneys, as you can see, had the upper floor.

First Baptist Church

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This was how First Baptist Church looked in the mid-40s.  There’s a color shot of this around, but it’s a commercial card that has been pretty heavily retouched.  This card was produced by the church.
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upper left:  Picture of L.B. Cobb, the pastor at the time.
First Baptist Church

“Not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” – Matt. 20:28

First Baptist Church, Kingsport, Tennessee, organized 1916, membership 1600, S.S. En. 1180, value of church property $150,000.00.  Annual budget approaches $30,000.00.  Radio ministry: Sundays, 11:00 – 12:00 A. M.; Saturdays, 8:45 – 9:00 A. M., Station WKPT.  L.B. Cobb is the pastor.

(below)

“In the Heart of Kingsport, for the Hearts of Kingsport.”

Wings Over Kingsport

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This is the 1938 edition of “Wings Over Kingsport”.  Photographer Richard Alvey took the pictures, mostly in 1937. There are 30 images.  He credits Louis Hilbert and Howard Cooper as his pilots and Kelly and Green for helping prepare the photos for publication.  They were lithographed at Howard-Duckett of Kingsport.
I have had the 1964 “Wings Over Kingsport 2” for years and never expected that I’d find a copy of this one in the wild.
I had Dick Alvey as a guest a couple of times on a radio interview show I hosted back in the ’70s.  He was an interesting guy to talk with.  He gave me permission to use a photograph he’d of Broad Street, taken from the train station tower, as a reference for a pen-and-ink drawing that I later made into a limited edition print.

Community Y

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COMMUNITY “Y,” CENTER AND SHELBY STREETS, KINGSPORT, TENN.

On the back:

Pub. by T. J. Stephenson, Kingsport, Tenn.

(Plate number) 121036

Printed by Tichnor Quality Views (Boston Mass.)  (here’s a link to their Tennessee issues)

Notes: This is the Shelby Street side.  I remember the open porch.  That part of the building was the Public Library in 1957.  The rest of the building housed City Hall offices.

Earliest confirmed postmark date I have for this series is 1926.  I also have post dates into the ’40s, so they hung around for quite a while.

 

At The Inn

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This rather well-produced post card, from the 1940s, appears to show a recreation room at the Kingsport Inn.  There are a doughty fireplace,  a radio set, a piano, game boards and chairs, an American flag and ashtrays everywhere. You can just see into the next room through the door.  The door to that room is open and there looks to be a window beyond the door.
I had dinner once at the Inn.  I was competing in the Optimist Oratorical Contest.  I didn’t win, but I had a good meal…roast beef, I think, and mashed potatoes.  That I remember, but as to what vegetable or dessert was served or what the interior of the Inn actually looked like, I have no clue.
Five or six years ago, while working on some project or another, I ran into the man who had been our coach for the contest.  He vaguely remembered me.  “I didn’t think you’d come to be anything,” he remarked.  I was a bit stung at first, then I thought, “Well, up yours, dude.  I did just fine, thank you.”
This card had been mounted in a scrap book, held in place by paper corners.  When the card was removed, some of the paper remained on the corners of the card.
On the back upper left is: KINGSPORT INN Kingsport, Tennessee.
It was printed by the Albertype Company in Brooklyn.

Supermarket Row

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Those of you who used to travel West Sullivan Street know that a major widening of this venerable artery is underway.  This echo of the path of the South Fork of the Holston River will become a grand boulevard to lead traffic down to where they’re hoping to get all that development going.
Anyway, my point in all this is that wall you can just see a bit of at the lower right hand corner.  That wall was on the boundary of the leveled parking lot for The Little Store Supermarket built here in 1952-53 (Grand Opening was January 15, 1953).  It was the second Little Store in Kingsport.  The first opened in 1939 at 311 East Sullivan Street (for years afterward that building was Brown’s Custom Shop).  Kermit Young started the first Little Store in Bristol in 1934.  He learned the business working at his father’s grocery operation in Johnson City.  Thank you, Kingsport Times-News, January 14, 1953.  Note: this building was razed in 2009.
From The Little Store to Oakwood Market, all on Canal Street: this was Supermarket Row.