Eastman Is King of Kingsport!

Well...Not in 1926.

On Feb. 28, 1926 the Kingsport Times listed employment figures for Kingsport's major industries and proudly proclaimed that more than one-third of the city's inhabitants were employed. "It is probable that there is no other city in the United States which has a larger percentage of workers and a smaller percentage of drones."

The biggest surprise in the list - at least to those of us who grew up in the age when Eastman was the dominant employer - is that in 1926 Eastman was only the fourth largest employer in town with 315 employees, a number dwarfed by the Kingsport Press, which employed 753 people and Borden Mills with 650 employees. Even Mead with 350 employed more than The Eastman. 

Eastman ranked fourth in town, followed closely by Kingsport Hosiery Mills with 300.

The newspaper estimated the city's population at 12,000.

(Click image to enlarge)