Tag Archives: Kingsport TN

Huddle Electric Sign

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huddlesign

A sudden re-emergence of an old sign.  Kyle Huddle built this building in 1947, moving from his previous location on Broad Street (he started out on Shelby Street).  I was never introduced to him, but I knew him by sight.  He was short and ageless.

He and Clifford Sanders, a lawyer, started Tennessee Cable Television Corporation, said to be the second-oldest cable TV company in the United States, in 1951.

According to Brianne Wright, Kingsport City Archivist, he had an 87-year stay on this good Earth, from 1904 to 1991.

Side note: the parking lot on which I was standing when I took this picture was, when I was a kid, an empty foundation filled with water.  Mom and I would go by it on our way to the library, then at the corner of Shelby and Center.  There was a fence, but you could look in.  I always wondered if there were fish down there.

 

Bennett & Edwards Insurance

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letter

Carl Swann, who gave this to me <thank you, again!>, said this copper alloy letter opener belonged to his grandfather.  It’s 8 inches long, slightly over 1 inch wide at the handle end, weighs 23 grams and is a little over 1 mm thick (that’s inconsistent, but I didn’t want to go to all the trouble of spelling “millimeter”).

Copper letter openers are still top-drawer specialty items today, but I think this was early B&E, maybe mid-30s.

Broad Street, 1946

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broadstreet

Summer, 1946.  Looking toward Church Circle.  The movie playing at the State Theatre is “The Enchanted Forest” (Maltin gives it 2-1/2 stars), released in December, 1945.

The war had been over for a year.

This is a real photo postcard (RPP).  EKC paper (available from 1939 – 1950).

A Remnant?

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long island

Driving down Jared Drive a couple of weeks ago, I saw this light blue house sitting quietly (and probably nearly invisible in summer) amongst the mass of Eastman.  There used to be a thriving and notorious community on Long Island.  I wonder if this is the last remnant of that neighborhood.

My dad was a taxi driver for a while.  He never liked having to go to Long Island at night.  He did, though, and lived into his seventies with nary a bullet hole visible.

The 50th

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kpt50

I stumbled across this recently in one of the old stuff malls.  This is the 50th anniversary booklet (standard size: 8.5 x 11″) issued by the ever mindful Chamber of Commerce.  Eight pages, excluding front and back cover.  It’s quite informative and well written.  Population then was about 33,000.  The mayor was Hugh Rule. C.K. Marsh apparently was the City Manager.

It also shows eight photos from the 1920s.  And plenty from 1966-67, which is, well, hell, 50 years ago.

Notice how a) the car tire tracks are really black and b) it apparently was normal to go directly from Watauga to Sullivan without slamming into the circle.

 

Roberts & Johnson Lmb’r Co

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tapemeasure

This grubby little number has been around for a while.  Roberts & Johnson Lumber Company, located next to Oakwood on West Sullivan Street, burned in the late 70s.  For some reason, nothing was ever done with the plot of land at 451 West Sullivan.  Until the apartments were built.  Alas, if this were yours and you just had to measure something, you’d be out of luck…it’s rusted closed.

Shelby Street Apartments

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shelby

Early morning, sometime around 1925.  It’s another T.J. Stephenson card…I’ve posted information about him here.  (Nothing special on the back, except the inventory number of 121035…the lowest number of these cards I have is 121023 and the highest is 121042.  It’s a Tichnor Quality Views card)

I think these were all residential then.  When I delivered papers down this street in 1957, there were several businesses along the way.  Whenever I catch the smell of kneaded erasers, my memory escorts me back to an art supply store about halfway down the street.  I’ve mentioned before that my dream was to have all the illustration board I wanted.  Got there.  Did that.

Oh, look, Ma!  No antennas on Bays Mountain.  Obviously.

Sobel’s

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I thank Carl Swann for this item.  Its age is indeterminate.  The “Sobel’s The Men’s Store” appears to have been hot stamped onto the shoehorn. “Shoehorn” is an old word, dating back to the late Middle Ages, as a “schoying horne” (it’s all in Wikipedia)…a “horn” in the sense of a tool, made of horn – the plastic of its day, to help put on a shoe.  There were various sizes (long ones for boots); this one is 3.5″ long.

Nunn Bush shoes are still distributed by Weyco in Wisconsin…Weyco is essentially a Florsheim operation since 1964.  Weyco claims a founding date of 1892.  Nunn Bush was established by Henry LIghtfoot Nunn in 1912.  I don’t know what happened to Bush.  I can’t find a reference.  Really, his middle name was “Lightfoot”?  Too punny.

When I was in the Air Force, we had the opportunity to purchase Florsheim dress shoes.  For whatever reason, most all of us had gone back to our Government-issue shoes in six months or so.  The Florsheims just didn’t hold up well (this was back in the mid-60s).

Trading Stamps – The Fever

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If you wish to brush up on your history of S&H Green Stamps, head over here,  Otherwise, read on about K-Savers trading stamps.


This is the book you’d stick your K-Savers stamps in, all notated (as far as I know) as worth 25 units of something.  The book is 3-3/4″ by 5-7/8″.  The stamps, shown below, each measure 1/2″ x 1-7/8″.
In the 1950s, Oakwood Markets, dating from the late 40s, was seeing a bubbling up of Green Stamp Fever, fed by market competitor Giant Supermarkets.  Figuring to find a parade and get in front of it (a favorite suggestion of Don Raines, my former boss), Wallace Boyd, one of the founders of Oakwood Markets, started Tennessee Stamp Company and began to spread K-Saver stamps across their multiple locations (11 or so in the 70s).  K-Savers had a catalog and a brick-and-mortar store at 813 Eastman Road – the site, next to Sloopy’s, is now home to a gas station.

   

Inside front cover, showing part of a stamp page, and inside of the back cover.

1157 Eastman Road was the location of the Oakwood Market in Greenacres Shopping Center. And note there are none of the legal conditions (you don’t own the stamps!) that S&H put on the back cover of their redememption booklets.