Our Correspondent in Arcadia

Barn fires and birthday parties, weddings and funerals, visitors from out of town and trips to town – those were the mainstays of the community correspondents who helped fill the pages of the Kingsport Times in the early years of publication.

These anonymous, unpaid writers would scribble down the mundane events of their communities and mail them into the paper where these items would be collected under the standing head “News of Nearby Communities.”

There would be news from well-known nearby communities, like Fordtown and Fall Branch, and lesser known – at least today – wide spots in the road like Enterprise and Cross and even a place called Lady’s Academy.

And the Queen of the Community Correspondents was Miss Eula Gaines, the Scribe of Arcadia, a community out Bloomingdale Pike, just beyond the Kingsley School.

For 18 years she mailed in her monthly – sometimes even more often – dispatches, a compendium of Life in Arcadia. Until 1942 when she retired as the longest continuous correspondent of the Kingsport Times, citing “other activities keeping her so busy.”

I was introduced to Miss Eula Gaines a couple of weeks ago through the above picture from the March 19, 1939 edition of the Kingsport Times.

I was searching for “news stands” on newspapers.com and the optical character recognition software mistakenly read “now stands” in the photo caption for “news stands.”

At first I was intrigued by the sign, a Kingsport City Limits marker from 1918 (the city was chartered in 1917):

Corporate Limits

City of Kingsport

Speed Limits Per Hour

Residence Section, 20 Miles

Business Section, 10 Miles

Then the photo gets a little fuzzy. Fortunately the City of Kingsport Archives has a similar photo taken in a different location that is more legible. The sign continues:

No Out-Outs (or Cut-Outs, I can’t tell which) Permitted (I have no idea what that means anyway)

No 5 Ton Loads, No Disc Harrows, Traction Engines, Etc. And No Loose Live-Stock Allowed On The Improved Streets.

Keep To The Right

The caption to the newspaper image notes “The photo shows the old Eastman bridge.”  

It does not note the two young women posing behind the sign. But it does say, “Submitted by Miss Eula Gaines.” And that’s when I became intrigued by Miss Eula.

I suspected Miss Eula Gaines might be one of the two young women so I searched the archive for her name.

I had the parameters set to “newest first” and the item at the top of the list was the 1975 obituary of “Miss Gaines, Pioneer City Nurse.” It was not Miss Eula Gaines but her sister, Miss Fannie Gaines, one of the first registered nurses in Kingsport, “graduating from Knoxville General Hospital in 1924.” Miss Fannie had been the supervisor at Riverview Hospital in Old Kingsport and started working at Holston Valley Community Hospital when it opened in 1935. “Survivors include a sister, Miss Eula Gaines, Kingsport.”

That had to be the two young women in the photo, Miss Eula and Miss Fannie.

From the obituary I knew about Miss Fannie, the Pioneer Nurse.

But what about Miss Eula Gaines? (And I am not mocking Miss Eula. Unfailingly every reference to her – and there are more than 400 in the Kingsport Times-News archive – calls her “Miss Eula.” So I will, too.)

It turns out Miss Eula was the Chronicler of Arcadia, a community out Bloomingdale Pike. And I mean THE Chronicler. She began chronicling the events of the community for the Kingsport Progress, an early newspaper that began publishing in April 1917. When she retired from writing Arcadia news for the Kingsport Times in 1942 after 18 years, she said wryly of the Progress, “It was only in progress one year.” She was the Times’ longest continuous community correspondent. Her retirement was necessary, she said, because other activities were keeping her busy.

She wasn’t giving up the pen entirely. She continued submitting regular Arcadia chronicles for other area newspapers, in particular the Sullivan County News, out of Blountville. Her last byline in that newspaper was from September 1971. Miss Eula was 77 at the time.

1917 to 1971 – 54 years - she chronicled Arcadia.

A few months after her final byline for the Blountville newspaper, Times-News reporter Joan Roesgen visited the Gaines sisters at their log home in Arcadia – where else? - and found Miss Eula finishing up her review of Arcadia in 1971.

Roesgen wrote:

 One quiet afternoon last week, Miss Eula Gaines gathered up the various birth announcements, wedding invitations, and death notices she had been accumulating, and seating herself in the front parlor of the old Gaines Homestead proceeded to write down the "Main Events of the Past Year, 1971, in Arcadia Community."

From the reaches of a memory honed with age, Miss Eula Gaines labored throughout the afternoon, bent over a stack of loose-leaf notebook paper and using a TV snack tray for a writing table.

The TV tray is the only modern intrusion in the Gaines parlor which saw its finest hour 50 years ago. In one corner of the room is a grand organ, and beside it on a white crocheted doily is the Family Bible, its pages turned brown by time and reverent hands.

The walls abound with faces of Gaines' kinfolk in their prime laughing out of faded photographs. There is Miss Eula herself, a pretty young thing beneath a wide-brimmed hat. And there is Miss Fannie, her regal profile framed by a mass of strawberry blonde hair.

The sisters never married, and they live together today in the log cabin where they were born.

Miss Fannie Gaines spent her youth as a registered nurse. Miss Eula Gaines turned her talent to writing personal items for area newspapers, no small achievement, since years ago the county correspondents’ tidbits often were the hottest news items off the press.

How else was an Arcadia housewife to know her sewing circle refreshments really were delicious and that Lorabelle's rheumatism was acting up again?

In recent years, having lost her daily clients to the New Journalism, Miss Eula Gaines turned her attention to compiling a "History of Kingsport," a work that also manages to read like a Gaines family scrapbook.

Arcadia Community stretches along a mile of Bloomingdale Pike beyond Kingsley School. There are about 50 homes, three churches, and one deserted store, the store having been abandoned, the sisters say, after it was robbed two or three times.

But who needs neon and night life? Miss Eula Gaines had no trouble collecting newsworthy items for her "Main Events of the Past Year, 1971, in the Arcadia Community" which she sent to the Times-News for publication, she said, "because everyone out this way would be so pleased to see it."

The chronicle is not a day-by-day accounting. There is no entry, for example, for April 19 when Arcadia resident (and Times-News reporter) Bob Smith, arriving home late from a poker game, stubbed his big toe on the bed post and let loose with a string of obscenities that could be heard all the way to Stuffle Heights.

But these trivia are perhaps best omitted. And the "Main Events” exactly as Miss Eula Gaines lived and wrote them are recounted here below.

The newspaper printed, in its entirety, Miss Eula’s 1971 Chronicle:

Jan. 4 – The earth was covered with beautiful deep snow for one week.

Jan. 13 - Judith Ann Newland was born at Holston Valley Community Hospital, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Newland, and granddaughter of Lessley Newland and the late Mrs. Newland of Arcadia, and Rev. and Mrs. F. F. Perry of New York.

February - A big snow again. The Sullivan County schools were closed at different times on account of the freezing cold weather and deep snow and ice.

Mar. 4 - Mrs. M. R. (Maud) Hickam passed away at Holston Valley Community Hospital.

Apr. 11 - Rev. Guy Tilley delivered the Easter sermon at Arcadia Presbyterian Church. A pot of flowers was given and sent to the mothers in the community.

May 23 – Rev. John Myers, the former pastor, delivered the annual Memorial Service at Arcadia Methodist Church at Reedy Creek Campground, followed by lunch.

June 3 - Mae Lynn Tilley and Danny Surgenor graduated at Ketron High School.

June 5 - William James Gaines and Esther Ruth Horton were married at Freewill Baptist Church in Unicoi, Tennessee. Relatives and friends from Arcadia, Bluff City and elsewhere attended the Gaines-Horton wedding. Reception was at the bride's parents' home, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Horton.

June 12 - William Boyd Hickam and Selma Christine Bledsoe were married at Vermont Methodist Church. Reception was in the basement at the church. Relatives and friends attended the Hickam-Bledsoe wedding.

June 20 - Rev. and Mrs. Dan Graham celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary at Graham Bible College on the Bristol Highway. Quite a number of friends from Arcadia, and elsewhere, and relatives were present. Rev. Dan Graham is founder of Graham Bible College.

July 17 - Lynn Hicks and Judie Davis were married at Ketron Memorial Methodist Church at Lynn Garden, Kingsport. Reception was in the basement at the church. A number of persons from Arcadia and elsewhere attended the Hicks-Davis wedding.

July 18 - Rev. and Mrs. Dick Knox and family John, Janice, and Steven Knox gave a musical program at Arcadia Presbyterian Church.

July 19 - The Knox family left Tennessee for a visit with Rev. Knox's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Knox of New York, before their departure overseas in the Middle East at Beirut, Lebanon.

July 30 - Dewey Dingus died at Holston Valley Community Hospital, husband of Mrs. Dewey Dingus.

Aug. 2 – Mrs. Mary Rogers died after a lingering illness at Holston Valley Community Hospital, mother of Mrs. J. L. Cain.

Aug. 3 - Charlie Dixon died at his home at Arcadia of a heart attack, husband of Mrs. Katherine Hicks Dixon.

Aug. 17 - Michael Surgenor and William James Gaines graduated at East Tennessee State University with 562 students in Johnson City, Tennessee. A number of persons from Arcadia community and elsewhere attended their graduation at the summer term.

Aug. 29 - Doris Ethel Payne Hale died at Holston Valley Community Hospital, wife of Robert Hale.

Sept. 26 - Garvie East died at Holston Valley Community Hospital, husband of Mrs. Garvie East.

Oct. 2 - Rebecca Ann Strickland was born at Holston Valley Community Hospital, daughter of Kenneth and Helen Carter Strickland, and granddaughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Carter of Arcadia.

Oct. 16 - Michael Blain Surgenor and Frankie Turner were married at Bethel Presbyterian Church, Warpath Drive, Kingsport, Tennessee. Relatives and friends from Arcadia and elsewhere attended the Surgenor-Turner wedding. Reception was in the basement at the church.

Nov. 22 - Mr. and Mrs. Lynn Hicks, Jr. celebrated their 25th Silver Wedding Anniversary at their home in Arcadia, with a family gathering and refreshments.

Dec. 18 - Linda Lue Surgenor and Ronnie Gatlett were married at Arcadia Union Church. Reception was in the church basement. Relatives and friends attended the Surgenor-Gatlett wedding.

 

Miss Eula Gaines was last heard from in the Times-News in a 1981 remembrance of the old Arcadia School, which was closing for good. Miss Eula had attended the school, then called Temperance Hall, beginning in 1900. At that time it only went through the fifth grade. “They taught us reading and writing and ‘rithmetic. Now they get to high school and can’t even read.”

Miss Eula learned her lessons well, reading and writing for newspapers for over half a century.

Miss Eula Gaines died in 1994 at age 100. 

 

“News of Nearby Communities” ran for 18 years.

The “News” came from all over the “section,” as editors liked to call the Kingsport area. The Jan. 31, 1932 edition had a representative sample with reports from Reedy Creek, Cook’s Valley, Fordtown, Bloomingdale, Green Shed, Eastern Star, Fall Branch, Harbor’s Chapel, Hiltons, Va., Nickelsville, Va., Cross, Vermont, East Kingsport, Goshen Valley, Sulphur Springs, Yuma, Gunnings, Rock Springs, Enterprise and Midway, Va.

“News of Nearby Communities” began as a regular feature in 1924. The first communities to report were Indian Springs, Bloomingdale, Blountville, Bristol Road, Blairs Gap, Kingsley, Pactolus, Cook’s Valley, Solomon’s Temple, Hemlock, Falls Creek, Pine Grove and Arcadia.

I don’t know where some of these communities are.

Miss Eula Gaines’ first Arcadia report on May 6, 1924 began:

“The following young ladies hiked to Chestnut Flatts Sunday. Misses Ada Hicks, Mae Denison, Mabel Hickam, Grace Fain, Izola Denison and Mrs. S.P. Fain. They picnicked in the beautiful grove that surrounded the little church and afterward visited an old man and lady who were nearing the century mark and to their surprise they learned from the old lady that they were distant related to her, she having the same name as one of the party before her marriage.”

What a nice little scene from a century ago, six young women hiking together from Arcadia all the way to Chestnut Flatt, which as best I can figure from the map is almost five miles away, near Hiltons, Virginia. And after their picnic visiting with an old man and an old lady. The last community news roundup to be published under the head “News of Nearby Communities” was on Sept. 24, 1941 and contained news from only four communities: Green Shed, Hiltons, Harmony and Arcadia.

Miss Eula’s final Arcadia dispatch had only three items, beginning with “Misses Fannie and Eula Gaines visited Lucy Rill and Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Anderson at Beason Well.”

  

My father grew up in one of those “nearby communities,” Green Shed, which is on the old Greeneville highway, five miles past Fall Branch. (Turn at Haw’s Crossroads. Green Shed is just past Bethesda Church.) The first time his name appeared in this newspaper was in 1929 – he was 13 years old and visiting his sister. The item was published under “News of Nearby Communities – Green Shed.”

The Axmen Cometh

 

Professional baseball came to Kingsport in 1921. That first pro team was called the Kingsport Indians and it was a member of the reborn Appalachian League. (The league had been in business from 1911 till 1914 before folding.)

It hasn’t been a straight line for professional baseball in Kingsport – there have been periods when the city didn’t have a pro team, most notably from 1925-1938 and from 1963 till 1969. For most of the early years the team was known as the Kingsport Cherokees.

But the team had been the Kingsport Mets since 1980, the longest stretch that a Kingsport team has had one name.

That changes this season.

In case you missed the news, Major League Baseball reshuffled, rejiggered, restructured and reduced in size its feeder system, the minor leagues, over the winter. It had nothing to do with the pandemic. I’m not sure exactly why the big leagues wanted to change a system that had been in place for decades. Oh, that’s right, money.

But among all the bathwater that got thrown out was Kingsport’s baby, its professional minor league team, the Kingsport Mets.

The century-old Appalachian League has been diminished into a summer league for college and high school kids. If anything, it’s a pre-minor league.

So the Kingsport Mets are no longer affiliated with the New York Mets and have no connection to the Mets name.

The team also has a new owner, the Boyd family of Knoxville. The most famous of the family is Randy Boyd, the failed gubernatorial candidate who in his spare time happens to be the president of the University of Tennessee.

New owner, new team name: the Kingsport Axmen.

The derivation is something about Daniel Boone and his followers, apparently known as the Axmen, who began cutting the Wilderness Trail on Long Island (well before there was a Kingsport).

You didn’t know that the D.B. in D.B.H.S. should actually stand for Daniel Boone and not Dobyns-Bennett?

Kingsport wasn’t the only local minor league team to get a nickname makeover.

Johnson City, long the Cardinals, is now the Doughboys. (They were the Cardinals as early as 1938; they were also the Phillies and the Yankees.)

There’s also the Greeneville Flyboys and the Bristol State Liners, a pretty weak nickname, but not as pathetic as the Burlington Sock Puppets.

Yes Burlington, the North Carolina city that is 20 miles east of Greensboro. I lived with my uncle in Burlington my senior year in college and it is a haul from Kingsport or any of the other “Appalachian” League teams. And in my four months in Burlington, I never heard anyone make reference to the Appalachian Mountains. Burlington is not an Appalachian Mountain town.

But this is not about whether Burlington belongs in the Appalachian League. Then I’d have to get into how the University of Louisville fits into the Atlantic Coast Conference.

This is about insane baseball nicknames and Burlington has one of the worst. (It derives from the historic Burlington Sock brand.)

The Burlington Sock Poppets? Is that supposed to strike fear in opponents’ hearts?

Odd nicknames have been around baseball for a long time dating back to the Toledo Mud Hens (the name traces to 1896), the Asheville Tourists (since 1897) and the Chattanooga Lookouts (selected in a fan contest in 1909).

It’s only been in the last couple of decades that attention-grabbing nicknames have taken off in the minor leagues. The trend has given us names that seem created to sell hats and tee-shirts instead of tickets.

So we have:

Lansing Lugnuts

Amarillo Sod Poodles

Rocket City Trash Pandas (in Madison, Alabama)

Hartford Yard Goats

Richmond Flying Squirrels

Hickory Crawdads

Savannah Bananas (the nickname has no meaning; just that Savannah and Banana rhyme)

We had the Savannah Sand Gnats before that team moved to Columbia, South Carolina and became the Fireflies.

And now the Kingsport Axmen.

I had never heard of an Axman until I read the story of the new name. And I was born in Kingsport. A long time ago.

I searched the newspaper archive from 1916 to 1965, the year I went away to college, and the name “axmen” appeared exactly twice, once before I could read. The other was in connection with the opening of Cumberland Gap National Park in Kentucky.

So I’ve been trying to come up with a better nickname.

How about the Kingsport Kodels? It’s got that alliteration that sportswriters love. And Kodel was manufactured, when it was manufactured, in Kingsport.

The Kingsport Coovers. That would be a tip of the hat to Harry Coover, the Eastman scientist who invented Super Glue. And it has that alliteration.

Well if you don’t like that, how about the Kingsport Gluemen? Or give it a superhero feel: the Kingsport Super Gluemen.

The Kingsport Press Types?

The Kingsport Villagers, after Borden Mill Village, Cherokee Village and any other Village neighborhoods in Kingsport.

The Kingsport Chemicals? (There is a team called the Albuquerque Isotypes.)

The Long Island Tees?

The Kingsport Jay-Freds?

Okay, I’m just getting silly now.

I only came up with these alternative nicknames as a lead up to the name I really want to see adopted by our minor league team:

The Kingsport Eastmen.

Vaccine Safari!

 

The last time I wanted to be older was when I was 15 and couldn’t wait to get my driver’s license. Now I’m back to acting like a 15-year-old. At 73 I am two years under the initial vaccine rollout age. And rollout isn’t the right term, more like a molasses pour, agonizingly slow.

But I didn’t have to wait till my 75^th birthday after all. A couple of weeks ago the state of Tennessee decreed that counties could lower the age threshold to 70 if they so chose. Many did.

But not Knox County, where I live.

Then the rumor mill got to churning, churning out rumors that turned out to be true: you didn’t have to get your vaccination in the county where you lived. You could get it in any county in the state.

Tennessee is not Rhode Island so it wasn’t like every county was convenient to Knoxville.  

Obion County was one of the first to lower its age threshold to 70 plus. Obion County is 360 miles from Knoxville, a six-hour drive if you don’t have to make a rest stop. In six hours I would have hadnto make, um, probably five.

But soon the dominoes started falling: Unicoi, Hancock, Greene. But not Knox County. And in fact none of the counties that ring Knox County.

No matter. My wife figured out the state’s vaccination website and the map and began signing me up in every East Tennessee county that had lowered its requirement to 70.

That was two weeks ago today. The next Monday we got the first call: there was an appointment opening in White County on Wednesday. Melanie and I looked at each other: Where’s White County? Then, Who cares?

So two days later we drove to Sparta, Tennessee, a wonderful small town 90 minutes from our house.

Wonderful because Sparta was the first place to offer me a vaccination appointment.

I’d seen a friend drive 90 miles to Rhea County (Dayton, site of the Scopes Monkey Trial) a week earlier. And he was 75. I had another friend drive two hours to the Bristol speedway and sit in line two hours to get a shot.

Sparta was a godsend and we were taking it.

The White County Health Department was a tiny building way off the beaten path but that bunch had their act together. We were in line a total of 15 minutes. A National Guardswoman administered the shot – thank you for your service!

We waited 15 minutes in a parking lot across the street for potential side effects that never came. Then it was 90 minutes back home.

I can’t say enough good things about White County and its Health Department.

Which is more than I can say for the state vaccine rollout.  

Just last night our governor was on TV crowing about how all these folks from other states had been calling him, congratulating him on Tennessee's vaccine plan. And I thought, What plan? I'll bet no one from Tennessee is calling him because we all know.

There are caravans of old people riding county to county in desperate search of a shot.

And there are underpaid health department workers dialing number after number, trying to fill up the vaccination schedule.

We have friends in Oak Ridge who drove two hours to McMinnville and another friend in Knoxville who drove an hour to Athens.

On the way back from Sparta, I got a call offering an appointment in Unicoi County, 110 miles east of Knoxville.

Thanks, thanks muchly, but I already got a vaccine. And I only had to drive 90 miles.

You have perhaps noted no mention of any friends getting a vaccine in Knox County. I don’t know of any. I do see a few on the news. Knox County's online sign up page just went up two days ago. Shortly afterward the Knox County Public Health Director announced that the county had lost 1,000 doses of vaccine. They don't know what happened to the box. They think it was mistakenly thrown out. Or maybe it never arrived. That’s it, it was someone else’s fault.

When the governor was congratulating himself for the successful vaccine rollout, he should have been congratulating Tennessee’s old folks who have successfully negotiated a labyrinth of websites that crash, phone lines that are busy and call backs that never happen.

Congratulations to anyone who has gotten a vaccine.

And cheers to anyone who got it effortlessly. Please tell the world how you did it.

The world needs to know.

That Dreaded Phrase: Some Assembly Required

 

Lots of Assembly Required: 

My then five-year-old son Will on the swing set that took me an entire weekend to assemble. 

The six-year-old grandson got a swing set for his birthday.

And thus it begins…the assembly.

His father, my son-in-law, is taking two days off work in anticipation.

I could have warned him. I’ve been there.

When my son was five, I got him a swing set for Christmas.

The assembly was so traumatic that I wrote about it in 1987:

  

The next time I buy a house, remind me to look in the back yard first.

If there isn't a swing set imbedded in concrete (so the owners can't take it with them), I'm not signing the contract.

I don't care what brand it is. The best swing set isn't necessarily the one from Wood Play or Hedstrom or Child Life.

The best swing set is the one that is already assembled.

I learned that lesson the hard way, by assembling one on a recent weekend, or, technically, a weekend-and-a-half.

Will, my 5-year-old, had been asking for a swing set since before Christmas. In a moment of catalog weakness, I called the Sears catalog office and ordered a swing set, not fully realizing what I was getting myself into.

It arrived Friday afternoon, just in time for the weekend. It came in a box 12 inches high, 18 inches wide and 15 feet long. The bag of nuts and bolts weighed as much as Will.

"We'll get started on it tomorrow morning," I told Will in my best Ward Cleaver voice.

Saturday morning Will was up bright and early, kneeling by the bed. "Daddy, when are you going to put my swing set together?"

"Let's wait till it's light out," I replied.

When I assemble a toy, I usually prefer to use an instruction manual as a last resort. But once I peeled the cardboard packing off, I knew this was going to be different.

Will immediately began sorting the parts out for me. Using his own sorting method: big and little. Big pieces here and little pieces over there.

I sat down and began reading. The instruction manual was not written by for someone as some-assembly-required-challenged as me. Fortunately there were a lot of diagrams. The first diagram showed me what tools we needed: pliers, hammer, adjustable wrench, screwdriver.

That was when I ran into my first obstacle. You see, we don't have any tools at our house. We used to have tools, but then we had teen-agers. And slowly the tools began to disappear. One was over at Danny's, another at Todd's. There were these vague promises to get them next time they were over there. But vague promises weren't going to tighten bolts and nuts.

It was scrounge time. I managed to find a pair of pliers in the utility drawer, under all the Mystery Parts left over from previous "some assembly required" toys. There was a bent screwdriver in the bathroom cabinet. I found the hammer in two parts, handle and claw, in the Mystery Drawer in the garage.

The adjustable wrench was, er, um, uh, in the trunk of my car. Will and I began assembling.

I got the seesaw together and held it up. "Yeah, it looks just like a seesaw," I said admiringly.

There was only one problem. It was all put together, but it wasn't on the swing. It was in my hands.

The engineering manual didn't mention the part about attaching the top bracket to the swing first. So I had to take the seesaw apart, hoist it over the top of the swing and then reassemble the bottom.

That was a regular occurrence on my assembly line. I didn't assemble a single part that I didn't have to go back at some point and disassemble.

Fortunately I had a lot of help from my 5-year-old.

I would say, "Get me that metal part on the right side of the box." And Will would say, "Which one?" And I would remember that it is impossible to give directions to someone who doesn't know right from left.

I had the steps bolted to the slide part and was searching for the supporting legs when I turned around and found Will at the top of the ladder, preparing to slide down.

As I would get it together, he would play with it.

I assembled much of the swing set in the garage. I did figure out that, once I got the main frame partly assembled, I would be better off finishing that part outside rather than having a swing set permanently parked next to the Audi.

"Hey, Daddy, look at this,” Will said just as I was reading how Part 12-8 went inside Part 13-5 and right as I discovered that I had already bolted 13-5 to 14-9 using the hole where 12-8 went.

"Look, Daddy." One quick glance. "Uh-huh."

I was too preoccupied with finding Part 12-4 to give Will my full attention. Our weekend together was not quality time; it was just time.

As the day went on, it got colder and colder out. I would assemble pieces in the garage, away from the wind, then carry them out to put on the swing.

I would head back in and turn to see a lonely, shivering 5-year-old, too cold to swing but too excited to give up and go in. So there he stood, pushing the swing seat back and forth.

By the time the sun was fading Sunday night, I had it all together except for the glider.

"I'll tell you what, Will," I said, nodding toward the growing darkness, "Let's finish up the glider next weekend."

"That's my favorite part," said Will, his face getting longer by the second.

It was back out to the garage, more fumbling and bolting. I was disassembling yet another section when I realized I hadn't heard a "Hey, Daddy, look" in quite a while. I started looking around. There he was in the corner, curled up with Part 15-18, this toy's Mystery Part (I never did figure out where it went), clutched in his hand.

The next day at work I was describing my lost weekend when one of the mothers I work with piped in: "You know, you can pay somebody to put a swing set together."

"You can?" I asked, rubbing my blistered fingers together.

"Yeah. They do it at Cycle World and they're real cheap."

I called and they charge $30 to $70, depending on the swing set.

Letting someone else put together a swing set for you is cheap at any price.

The Man Who Saved Wallace News

 

Marty Mullins saved a Kingsport landmark in 1974 and he never got credit for doing it.

That’s probably because at the time he did it, no one realized it was a landmark or that his purchase was saving it.

But in early 1974 Wallace and Launa Crum had announced they were retiring and closing Kingsport’s long-running newsstand, Wallace News at 205 Broad Street.

The Times-News even ran one of those front-page stories that newspapers love to run: farewell to our beloved local business, so long, it’s been good to know you.

No one, at the newspaper or in town, gave it a second thought. A newsstand was closing, a used clothing store would probably be moving in. There was still Russell News in Five Points.

But it was worthy of front-page notice.

“Spring never arrived officially until Crum rolled open the big door,” staff writer Joan Roesgen waxed.

She quoted an unnamed patron as saying, “Without Wallace there wouldn’t be any downtown Kingsport.”

At one time downtown Kingsport was filled with newsstands. There was Kingsport News on Main Street and Broad Street News on, naturally, Broad Street, and Russell News in Five Points. And Wallace had its main competitor, Palace News, almost directly across Broad Street.

In their hey-day newsstands didn’t just sell newspapers, they also carried fruit and tobacco and even a few cosmetics and snacks, an early version of the convenience store without the gas pump.

The newsstand was a place to buy the newspaper but also to get the news. Large crowds turned out in 1919 in front of City News Stand on Broad Street as the clerks posted periodic updates on the Dempsey-Willard fight. And in 1939 when the D-B football team was playing Jacksonville High in Florida – this was before WKPT and Martin Karant – Broad Street Fruit and News promised fans could call the stand any time that night and get the score.

The newsstand was a gathering spot for downtown workers, a place to swap stories and catch up on the news.

But times changed. Palace News, which had opened in 1933, hung on till 1966, even adding jewelry to its stock (!!) before closing down. Russell News’ 8-foot tall stuffed bear, which had frightened small children since Bud Edwards bagged it in Alaska in 1959 and displayed it in the shop, was getting ratty and so was Russell’s merchandise. It would close in ’78.

So when the Crums announced in 1974 that they were closing the overheard door for the last time, it wasn’t a shock. Newsstands weren’t an integral part of Kingsport life like they once were.

And downtown wasn’t the integral part of Kingsport life that it had been.  

The Charles Store across the street from Wallace’s in 1974 was slashing prices: “Everything Must Go.” The Revco next door to Charles Store had a moving sign in the window, and on down the block Kress’s window said “Gigantic Sale - Store Closing.”

Wallace was the only Broad Street newsstand left – in the thirties there were as many as five at one time - and soon it would be gone.

But then Arvin “Marty” Mullins stepped in to buy the place and keep it going.

He would tell me years later, “I just always loved newsstands. When I was going to Lynn View, I’d head downtown after school and hang out at Palace News, playing the pinball machines and shooting the breeze.”

Marty Mullins as a student at Lynn View High

That’s why he decided to buy Wallace News. Not to preserve a landmark.

But he did preserve a landmark. He kept Wallace going for the next 40 years, sitting there like a time capsule from a long-ago era. There were fewer magazines – often only one copy of each title – and fewer newspapers. Even the Bristol paper stopped sending copies to Wallace by 2010.

There was still the popcorn machine, right up front almost touching the sidewalk, and the soft drinks in the cooler and a modest stack of fresh copies of the Times-News and the Johnson City Press (which was printed in Kingsport by then).

And there was Troy Brown, who by 2014 had manned the front counter for 47 years and was as familiar a face on Broad Street as the Meter Maid once had been.

Troy Brown at front counter of Wallace News

Then in 2014 after 40 years Marty announced he was retiring, closing the newsstand down. Marty had run Wallace News longer than the place’s namesake Wallace Crum had. He was 77 and told me he wanted to do more camping.

When I moved back to Kingsport in 2002, Wallace News was one of the few Broad Street businesses left from my childhood. The rest of downtown was consignment shops and antique stores and vacant store fronts.

There was the usual gnashing of teeth and renting of garments when word got out that Marty was closing Wallace: so long, been good to know you.

Then Thom Throp stepped forward to buy the place, keep the downtown landmark going.

It was a valiant effort. But times had changed too much. Keeping a newsstand open 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week was arduous work for little reward. Thom closed Wallace News Stand for good in April 2018. It’s been sitting there like a flat tire ever since.

Two weeks ago Marty Mullins died; Marty was the last link to Wallace of Wallace News.

Marty

Maybe someday times will change again and there will be a newsstand on Broad Street. But I doubt it will sell newspapers.

 

 

A Brief History of Newsstands in Kingsport

Kingsport’s first newsstand was City News and Fruit, opened in 1917 by J.H. “Daddy” Long at 114 Broad Street, next to Kingsport Drug.

In 1919 City News advertised itself as the local distributor for the Knoxville Journal and Tribune, Bristol Herald Courier, Johnson City Staff and Kingsport Times.

City News was only a few steps from the train station and soon it added a number of out-of-town newspapers including the Chicago Sunday Tribune, the New York News, and the Atlanta and Richmond papers.

In 1925 Long sold the newsstand to J.C. Zarnes and George Earles who renamed it Kingsport Fruit and News. It would stay in business at that location until 1954 when Earles’ widow, unable to find a buyer, closed it down.

 

Wallace News traced its roots back to 1932 when Bill Richardson and Paul Bailey opened the Broad Street Step-In, a combination pool hall and newsstand, in its familiar Broad Street space, then next to Western Union, which was on the corner of Broad and Market. In 1935 they changed the name to Broad Street Fruit and News.

Fire completely destroyed the newsstand in January 1941 and it was two months before it reopened. By then Richardson and Bailey were ready to sell and Wallace Crum, who had been working at Palace News since 1936, was ready to buy. He announced his purchase and renaming in the Sunday Kingsport Times of April 20, 1941.

And thus Wallace News was born.

 

Palace News was founded in 1925 as Palace Barber Shop, operated by John Tranbarger. In 1933 Charles Coley opened Palace Fruit and News in the front part of the shop. By 1939 Palace Barber Shop and Fruit and News Stand was owned by Paul Nottingham and advertised 13 employees including legendary Kingsport barbers Floyd Cavin, Pat Clark, B.B. Sullivan and Tommy Thompson and shoe shine men Oscar Goines and Chayman Meeks.

Sidebar: I played for the Palace News basketball team in the City League when I was 14. Our uniforms were red tee shirts, Palace News silk-screened in white on the front, with shiny red shorts. (I averaged ten points a game; the team averaged 23 points a game. Lest you think I was a big star: my teammate Jimmy Sams averaged eleven points a game.)

 

Fred King left Kingsport Fruit and News in 1927 to open his own newsstand on Cherokee Street next to the Palace of Sweets. He conducted a contest to name the business. The winning entry from T.J. Pierce elicited this wonderful headline in the Kingsport Times: “’King’s Palace’ Is The Winning Cognomen.”

 

My favorite Kingsport  newsstand that I never visited would have been Star News, which operated at 131 Broad from 1937 till 1939. (I never visited because I hadn’t been born yet.)

Star News advertised in the Kingsport Times that it sold Bluebird Records for 35 cents each, 3 for $1.

Among the titles were the Blues records “Didn’t It Rain – Part 2” by the Heavenly Gospel Singers and “Angel Child” by Walter Davis, and the Hill Billy records “The Hottest Gal in Town” by Three ‘Baccer Tags and “What Would You Give in Exchange – Parts 2 and 3” by the Monroe Brothers (yes, Bill Monroe with his brothers Charlie and Birch).

 

As a kid my favorite Kingsport newsstand was Russell News in Five Points because of its wide selection of paperbacks. I bought “My Brother Was An Only Child” by humorist Jack Douglas there. A month or so later I went back and bought the sequel “Never Trust a Naked Bus Driver.”

They were not children’s books.