Tag Archives: Kingsport TN

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.

 

WKPT Studio

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I’m taking a chance here, but I think this was taken before the fire that severely damaged the WKPT studios.  I don’t recognize the studio configuration or that strange wall treatment.

I didn’t have any luck tracking down when Pilgrims Songs sheet music was published, but the microphone is a Western Electric 639 or so, made in the late 1930s (after 1941, it would have been branded as an Altec).  This mike, or one like it, was still around when I was at WKPT.  People had their preferences as to the setting.  I liked cardioid and got fussed at one time for switching it.  Today, these mikes are selling for around $600 to $800 on ebay.

There is nothing of interest on the back of this card…no publisher, no photographer attribution.  Annoying.

Ramp!

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ramp

This is the back of the old Coca-Cola bottling plant on West Sullivan.  The trucks backed up this ramp to be loaded for deliveries.  Backing up the ramp must have been fun, especially before dawn.  Or raining.  Or in snow.

The windows in front of the building allowed you to watch the process as the bottles whizzed by.  Hot stuff in the ’50s.

Tennessee Valley Dragway

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This was part of the Tennessee Valley Dragway (1965 – 1969), looking east to Cleek Road.  Had the strip been completed, it would have spanned the 3/4-mile or so between Cleek Road and an area in front of the present Traders Village. Note: the access to this area is gated.  It’s on private land.

Interesting history…read about it here.

First Baptist Church

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Glenn Souders was working as a photographer for the Kingsport Times-News in the early 60s.  I suppose the “Souders Photo Service” was a side business for him.

I mention this for two reasons: a) this is the only card I’ve ever seen that lists him as the publisher (it was printed by Dexter Press in New York) and b) I was hired by Glenn at WKPT Radio in 1967.  He, much later, became a priest.  He showed up at the station sometime in the 90s and the boss brought him by my office.  The expression on my face when I saw him in a collar caused them both to laugh.

An Evening with Canon

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This was probably 1982.  Jim wasn’t at the Ft. Henry Drive location all that long and, by 1993, the next time a Thursday fell on September 30, he had moved to the Eastman Road location.

I miss camera shops.  Back then, I couldn’t afford much in the way of cameras and lenses.  I made do, thanks to some horse trading with Jim, but I really yearned after the new cameras and the fast (for then) lenses.

Jim and Janet and Paul and Jeff.  Great people to work with (I did some camera repair) and to talk with.

The Stuff That’s Coming

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World War II had ended a little over a year before this ad was published in the July 1946 Intermountain Telephone Company Telephone Directory for Kingsport, Gate City and Sullivan Gardens.  Dobyns-Taylor was, in essence, priming the pump.  Little did they know the flood of products that would soon wash over them.

The Shaheen Building

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This corner building, the red brick part, was once known as the Shaheen Building and home of the Palace of Sweets, owned by Charles Joseph, Sr., who had come here from Lebanon (the country).  He and M.F. Kabool (of Iager or Iaeger WV) opened the Phoenix Restaurant here (302 East Sullivan) in 1927.  It was remodeled in 1937, to much celebration in the local newspaper.  Apparently, it was a quite well respected eatery.

It was still open in 1948, but I lose track of it after that.  It wasn’t the open as the Phoenix in 1957-1959, when I lived downtown, but the large sign over the doorway was still there. Years ago, I asked my stepdad if he knew anything about the place (he’d been in Kingsport in the 30s) and he recalled staying in one of the rooms upstairs.

Down from the Phoenix…I think where the other red brick building is, was the Liberty Cafe (305 East Sullivan), also owned by Mr. Joseph.  The building in the light tan brick was, in 1959, part of McKarem’s Department Store.

In 1947, the Phoenix Grill advertised aggressively in the paper that it sold beer by the case for off premise consumption…and they’d deliver!

Tri-City Airport

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This Haynes Distributing Company postcard shows two aircraft sitting on the tarmac: a Fairchild F-27, which Piedmont flew from 1958 to 1967, on the left; and the tail portion of a DC-3, which Piedmont took out of service in 1963.
Since Joyce L. Haynes, the photographer, was undoubtedly an efficient person, I think she took all four of these photographs around the summer of 1962.

I have a number of cards published by Haynes (and printed by Dexter).  I think there were at least two series of cards done: the earlier ones with photos taken by Joyce L. Haynes and a later series with photography by C. H. Ruth.

I also think Ms Haynes had a knack for choosing days with brilliant blue skies and fluffy white clouds (The Orb!).

Downtown Kingsport

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I have several views of downtown Kingsport taken from Cement Hill.  Several years ago, when I was new to postcards and rather dismissive of chromes, I thought this was a recent card and, based on seeing the old City Hall, I dated it to the early 60s. But I didn’t realize until today, when I was looking at it again, that I could date it really accurately.  The red arrow points to the old City Hall (and library) and the yellow arrow indicates the Downtowner.  The Downtowner opened for business in 1961 and The Kingsport Times-News (November, 1962) reported that the old City Hall was mostly demolished.  The photo for this card was taken in summer of 1962.
It was published by Haynes Distributing Company in Roanoke and was printed in West Nyack NY by Dexter Publishing Company.  Joyce L. Haynes took the photo.  I’m not turning up any information on Haynes Distributing Company, nor of Joyce L. Haynes. She does, however, show up as the photographer for many postcards of this period.