The now former site of Ward’s Feed Store on Revere Street.
For years, this store was on the corner of Cherokee and Main.
This was the old paint-up sign on Cherokee.
Moving Right Along…
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Tag Archives: Kingsport TN
Early Air Conditioner
Back before the now ubiquitous air conditioning units became common on business rooftops, these structures dominated. This unit, which used to be on top of the Variety Printing building (formerly one of two downtown locations of Mack Ray Cafeteria…the other was on Commerce Street in the old Harry Mills Motors, across from WKPT), cooled the inside air by evaporation. Inside this louvered, wooden structure was a coiled pipe through which air was pumped. Water was sprayed over the coil, thus cooling the air by evaporation. Something akin to the effect you’d get from a wet t-shirt, if the only reason you were wearing a wet t-shirt was to cool off. And if you had a breeze of some sort.
At any rate, I would often get lightly sprinkled with water walking down the alley, if the breeze (mentioned before) was blowing the right direction.
Why was I in the alley? Going around to Wallace News, of course.
Note the (ha!) stabilizing wires. Such strength.
The Last of the Big Store
In November, 1985, the building that once housed The Big Store burned down. The Big Store was an all-in-one place; even the Post Office was there. It was said you could go from birth to death at The Big Store. J. Fred Johnson’s, which is now a furniture store on the west corner of Broad and Center, was a spin off, as was Hamlett-Dobson Funeral Home.
Judging from the shadows, I must have gotten there early in the morning, but it appears the firefighters had everything pretty much under control by then.
Plaza Say Gone
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.
Midnight Sun
Forty-six years ago, I began the first permanent rock show on WKPT-AM. John Dotson had “Sounds of Summer” the previous year, but it ended when he went back to school or left town or something. It was a good show and broke the Easy Listening hold on that staid, NBC-affiliated station. So, I swooped in the next year, ditched “Teenage Terrace”, (which I had been on when I was in high school, from 5:00 to 6:00 pm, as I recall, with Marty running the board and we students, when we showed up, sitting at the table in the news studio) and had the 6:00 pm to midnight slot all to myself as “The Midnight Sun”.
Since this was before 8-track tapes in cars became widely available, I was a success, as it were, with the kids cruising Broad Street. Then, the tapes came and I eventually moved into the afternoon Drive Time slot. The fact that, for the most part, I had to buy my own records for the show and management had the nerve to put something like this cloth sticker out helped me leave it behind. “Like it is”, my ass. The phrase was a joke by this time.
The ellipse is 4″ on the horizontal axis and 2-1/2″ on the vertical.
The Famous Rotherwood Farm
“The famous Rotherwood Farm at the junction of the North and South Forks of the Holston River” bottom: “Kingsport, Tenn. in the distance”
This is one of a series of cards published by T.J. Stephenson, Kingsport, Tenn.
I have 20 unduplicated cards of this series and I know there are more. The earliest postmark I’ve found is 1925 and the latest is 1942. They were around for a while.
The cards were printed in Cambridge MA under the “Tichnor Quality View” name.
Here’s the back:
The plate numbers on the cards I have run from 121027 to 121042 (I don’t have all of that run).
Down On The Corner
This is on the corner of Fairview and West Sullivan. Back in the 50s, this was Barker’s Grocery. The owners lived upstairs. Down from it somewhere was a Yellow Front Market. There were a number of homes and small businesses here once, before the city decided that the increase in traffic warranted a complete redo of that area where Sullivan Street goes under the railroad. The roads in the area; West Sullivan Street, West Center Street and Ft. Robinson Drive, were also rerouted slightly.
The home next to the building is of the period, also. It’s not in this picture, but if you look carefully, should you be idly passing by this area sometime, you’ll see a stonework gatepost with the original iron still in it just west of the brick house. I suspect it was the entrance once to the Roller property.
Downtown Kingsport
This Duotone card’s picture was taken, I think, around 1915 or 16 from about halfway up Cement Hill. The street to the left is Shelby, with the Big Store on the left. The bank, the building with the columns, is on the corner of Broad and Main. Note there’s no Church Circle, but there is the old school and the old Presbyterian Church just to the right of where Shelby ends at Sullivan.
It looks as if someone at the publishing company (CT – Curt Teich – in Chicago) inked in some of the fainter lines of the buildings in the background, which makes it harder to identify them. However, I think the building I live in is there.
This card was “published by Kingsport Drug Store”. Standard double-back for the time. Typical penny postcard.
Skoby’s
I picked this card up at a flea market recently for 25 cents. it was published by Creed Studios in Bristol and measures 8-3/4″ by 3-1/2″. This had to have been published before 2005, when Skoby’s left the Barger hands. The card was printed by Dexter Press in West Nyack NY. ID number is 78651-D
I miss Skoby’s. I didn’t eat there often, but I always enjoyed it when I did. The Back Room was rather a middle-class dive, but the restaurant’s food was excellent.
I miss the old Peerless, too. At one time, it was in the same class as Skoby’s.
Bob Lawrence's Kingsport 