Tom Edison in Kingsport

 

Thomas Edison at the Kingsport Inn

When we studied Great Inventors in fifth grade at Johnson Elementary, Mrs. Stultz failed to mention that one of them, the great Thomas Alva Edison, once came to Kingsport, meeting with a local developer in hopes of finding a site for a new factory.

I had never heard the story at all until I stumbled across a picture of the Great Man, standing in the courtyard of the late, lamented Kingsport Inn with a pioneer Kingsport real estate developer, William Roller.

(William was not part of the Roller Woods’ Rollers. Roller Woods would eventually become the Ft. Henry Mall. His family farm, where he grew up, was directly across the Holston River from Old Kingsport. Right, he grew up on the tract of land that would one day become Ridgefields!)

In 1918 Roller was one of many local developers looking to score with the industrialists who were eyeing Kingsport as a future factory site. And the fact that he managed to land a lunch date with Thomas Edison is proof of his acumen.

But it happened and you can see the proof in the photo.

I ran across it while thumbing (electronically) through the Dec. 29, 1957 edition of the Kingsport Times-News, a special 40^th Anniversary Progress issue.

On page 89 a full-page ad for Dougherty-Roller Real Estate, Insurance and Mortgage Financing (101 Broad Street, Telephone CI 5-3167) features that photo of Edison and Roller, alongside a portrait of William Roller Sr. “The photo at left shows William Roller Sr. conferring with Thomas A. Edison in 1918 while they were trying to find a suitable plant site in Kingsport. The photo was taken in the court of the Kingsport Inn.”

Obviously their business dealings didn’t come to fruition. I don’t remember an Edison Phonograph Factory in Kingsport, do you?

Or maybe he wasn’t looking to build a phonograph factory in east Tennessee. Maybe it was, I don’t know, Portland Cement.

Edison did found the Edison Portland Cement Company in 1899 and his company supplied the concrete for the construction of Yankee Stadium in 1922. Maybe Roller had told him about Kingsport’s successful cement company, hoping to interest Edison in building a cement plant on the other side of the Holston on the Roller family farm.

We don’t know what Roller had up his sleeve when he met – and most likely dined – with Edison at the Kingsport Inn.

I searched the Edison Papers, digital edition, at Rutgers University and there is no mention of Kingsport or of William Roller.

But we know Edison was in the area in 1918. Again we have photographs and lots of newspaper articles from the Johnson City Staff, the Bristol Herald-Courier and the Knoxville Journal and Tribune. No 1918 issues of the Kingsport Times exist – if they did we might have the real answer to what transpired during the Edison-Roller meeting.

Why was Thomas Edison in the area (or “this section” as newspapers called it at the time)?

Camping!

What?

Camping!

Beginning in 1915 and continuing most every summer until 1924, Edison would go camping with a couple of his friends, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone.

Yes, that Henry Ford, of Ford Motors. And yes, that Harvey Firestone, of Firestone Tire & Rubber.

Tagging along was John Burroughs, the world-famous naturalist.

It were as if Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk took an annual camping vacation and dragged along Ken Burns to document the event. How long do you think those four would be camping before the first fist fight broke out?

But Edison, Ford, Firestone and Burroughs were companionable. And also quite old, especially Edison and Burroughs  – their fist fighting days were probably long in the past.

In 1918 Edison was 71, Ford, 55; Firestone; 49; and Burroughs the senior member at 82.  

They called themselves The Vagabonds.

And while they called it a camping trip, they were not roughing it.

They traveled in two Packards followed by a pair of Ford trucks with all their camping gear and other necessities. They also were trailed by staff that sometimes numbered as many as 50.

That 1918 trip began in Pittsburgh, meandered down through West Virginia, southwest Virginia, including an overnight stay in Tazewell, continuing through Abingdon, Bristol, Bluff City, Elizabethton and Johnson City, before pitching camp near Jonesboro.

In Johnson City a crowd estimated by the Johnson City Staff at between 500 and 1,000 turned out to see “four of America’s most illustrious citizens” pass through.

The Staff chronicled the brief stop this way:

“The party rolled in on time. John Burroughs was the first to arrive. Looking like Rip Van Winkle, with his gray whiskers and linen duster and carrying his slightly over eighty-two years remarkably well, he alighted from his car in front of the Majestic theatre and was strolling down Main street when Ed Brading and Munsey Slack recognized him and introduced many directors of the Chamber of Commerce to him. He was astonished that anyone here should recognize him.

“Thomas A. Edison, who was seated with the chauffeur in the car with Mr. Ford and Mr. Firestone, is one of the most modest men who has ever visited this section. He is a trifle hard of hearing and when one Johnson Citian went up to him and told him he wanted to shake hands with the greatest man in the world, he blushed and modestly denied the accusation.

“Abe Slack, a Staff carrier boy, was fortunate enough to sell Edison a paper. Mr. Edison's car had not more than stopped on Roan street than the big inventor waived to him, and he had not more than gotten his arm fully extended than Abe was on the machine. He gave the youngster a dime, and when he reached to get change, Mr. Edison grabbed another paper and passed it back to Ford, telling the boy to keep the change. Abe has refused $5 for that dime.”

The next day the Staff published an anecdote about the Jonesboro camp:

MR. EDISON GIVES ADVICE

TO JONESBORO BOY

“George, the nine-year-old son of Mrs. Addie Devault, when he caught sight of Mr. Edison, immediately greeted him as a well-known friend, In spite of his youth, George. has read widely and exhaustively, one story particularly had left an impression, that of a certain experiment tried by the great inventor to incubate eggs.

“’I've read about you.’

“’You have,’ smiled Mr. Edison, ‘and what was it you read?’

“’Why I read about you settin' on those eggs to hatch 'em.’

“Mr. Edison joined in the shout of laughter that followed.

Don't ever try it son,’ he advised soberly,’ it won't work.’”

 

The Vagabonds were off the next morning, heading for the Grove Park Inn in Asheville.

Sometime between Bristol and breaking camp Edison managed to work in that meeting with William Roller.

And perhaps someday we will know what they talked about.

 

 

 

Burroughs, Edison, Ford and Firestone

The Vagabonds camping trip was well-chronicled by the press along the route.

The Philadelphia Public Ledger reported on a “high kicking” contest involving Ford, Edison and Burroughs.

“Despite their advanced years, Thomas A. Edison, the inventor; Henry Ford and John Burroughs, the naturalist, today demonstrated to a large number of guests at the Summit hotel at Uniontown, Pa., that they were still full of ‘pep' when they gamboled about the hotel lobby and did high-kicking and stair-jumping ‘stunts.’

“While lounging about the hotel lobby Mr. Ford placed a cigar on the mantelpiece over an old-fashioned fireplace and, turning to Mr. Edison, said:

“’I'll bet you can't kick it off.’

“’I'll go you,’ replied the inventor.

“With comparatively little effort Mr. Edison kicked the cigar off the mantel three successive times. Mr. Ford then tried and succeeded in kicking off the cigar once. Mr. Burroughs, the oldest of the three, pleaded he was too tired to try, but did make one attempt.

“A few minutes later a stair-jumping contest was arranged by Mr. Edison. Mr. Ford came out the winner by making ten steps in two hops. Mr. Edison made the steps in three. Mr. Burroughs, in his attempt to defeat his adversaries, lost his balance and was rescued from a fall by onlookers.

“On the road from Connellsville to Uniontown this morning the party encountered engine trouble, and Mr. Ford demonstrated his mechanical genius by repairing the automobile.”