Remember the Upper Circle?

The more famous Brooks Circle was where Eastman Road met Johnson City Highway and Bristol Highway.

The Upper Circle was where Center Street (known in 1953 as Old Bristol Highway) met Bristol Boulevard (later Memorial Boulevard), Warpath Drive and Miller Street. 

In 1953 an ambitious young developer decided to commercialize the area with the Upper Circle Shopping Center, a strip center that would encompass seven new storefronts, joining several existing businesses, including the legendary Poston's Market and The Garden Basket. 

The Times-News promoted the new shopping area with a map and a group of ads in the Sunday April 26, 1953 edition. 

(Click on images to enlarge)

Business number 14 on the map was Jimmie's Steakhouse where two years later Elvis would dine post-Civic Auditorium show with his band mates and his Kingsport date Billie Mae Smith. 

Business number 5 was Sword's Barber Shop, where I got my first haircut from Reverend Roy Lawson (barber during the week, preacher on Sunday).

Business number 1 was Brickey Grocery. A couple of years later Leonard Brickey would build a motel directly across the street. Elvis would rent a room there the night he played Kingsport in September 1955. (He and his band members didn't spend the night. They only used the room to shower before the show.)

The Garden Basket and the Model City Motel had opened in 1952 but the developer included them on his shopping center map. 

There were competing gas stations: Kennedy's Esso was across the street from Bristol Circle Shell (later Jeter's Shell).

And the developer?

Check out his ad for the one vacant storefront....

It was 37-year-old Jimmy Quillen!

Cleaning Out My Desk – Columns I Never Got Around To Publishing

 When I retired as metro columnist for the Kingsport Times News on Sept. 23, 2018, I still had a hopper full of almost-finished, half-finished and half-baked columns. 

I have been cleaning out my digital desk and posting those columns on this blog since April 2019. 

So watch this blog space for the Columns I Never Got Around to Publishing.

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