When the D-B Cheerleaders Froze Their Pom Poms Off! Also When Kingsport Tried to Bulldoze Church Circle! And Sousa Conducted the D-B Band!

 

The Year The City Tried To Bulldoze Church Circle

Bill Barnett thought he smelled a rat. The Kingsport Times-News City Hall Reporter had just finished up covering a routine Board of Mayor and Aldermen meeting on Feb. 2, 1954 and he felt the group was hiding something. He wrote in the next day’s paper: “Widening East Sullivan Street from Cherokee Street to the Broad Street Circle won top place on the tentative list Tuesday night.”

 That project had been postponed numerous times over the year. “Previous city councils had passed up the Sullivan Street petition - now the oldest in the city's files - on the ground it would involve removing trees along the parkway and thus would destroy the scenic effect of the entire circle area. Broad Street Circle, with tree-lined streets radiating from it in six directions and churches on four of the six corners, is one of Kingsport's oldest and best-known landmarks. However, it also is one of the city's worst traffic headaches.”

And that’s where Barnett smelled the rat: “The nature of the changes planned was not made public, and city officials were not available for questioning on it immediately after the meeting.”

And with good reason were they not available for questioning after the meeting. They were planning to bulldoze Church Circle!

Barnett managed to corner City Manager D.W. Moulton the next day and smoke out the real story for the front page the next day: “Broad Street Circle would be removed and solid paving substituted for the grass plot under plans being considered by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen as part of this year's street improvement program. The nature of the proposed project was not made public until a reporter sought clarification from Moulton Wednesday.”

Church Circle circa 1920

The public, as expected was outraged. Dig up Church Circle and replace it with paving and multiple street lights? Never!

Four local garden clubs sent letters of protest. The Times-News, under the headline “Spare The Circle,” editorialized, “Kingsport is a unique community because it was planned. Dr. John Nolen of Cambridge, Mass. saw in Kingsport, not only a practical site for industry, but a community of happy people. He saw schools and churches, parks and playgrounds, and shade trees. And so he planned for beauty as well as utility. He laid out a parkway along Broad Street. He laid out park sites along this avenue. And to cap it off, he put a circle at one end of the downtown section. The Broad Street Circle is probably the best known and most beloved landmark in this planned industrial city. The Board of Mayor and Aldermen want to remove the Circle. They claim it is a traffic impediment. Its removal may help ease the traffic problem - and that is doubtful - but it will certainly destroy an integral part of our city. We hope the Board reconsiders. Some things are dearer than ‘efficiency.’”

A February 17, 1954 front page story by Bill Barnett told it all. “Plans for eliminating Broad Street Circle were revised Tuesday night after the Board of Mayor and Aldermen received protests.”

Church Circle was spared.

But Kingsport almost lost Church Circle.

Thanks to a sharp-eyed reporter and an uproar by the public, it was saved.

But barely.

 

When D-B Cheerleaders Froze Their Pom Poms Off!

In 1958 D-B’s basketball team made it all the way to the championship game of the state tournament. Times-News sports editor Frank Creasy followed the team to Nashville and filed this note, buried deep in his column about tournament goings-on:

“D-B's cheerleaders are here. They came down on the bus with the team Sunday. However, they're staying at a motel on the outskirts of town with Mrs. Dottie (Coach Bob) Patterson as chaperone. Dottie was a cheerleader for Nashville Hillsboro the year the stale tourney was held in Johnson City (1953).

“The seven comely D-B girls went along with a publicity gimmick for WSM-TV Tuesday morning. They donned bathing suits and went through some of their routines in the swimming pool (yes, there was water in it), oblivious of the 40-degree breeze.

“The sound film was shown here last night. It was sent on to Johnson City’s WJHL-TV and may be shown Wednesday or later in the week.

“The Tribe yell leaders are Dotty Moran, Brenda Marshall, Linda Thompson, Betty Harman, Pat Bailey, Carolyn Phipps, and Clara Cox.”

 

Maybe that was a run-of-the-mill column item in 1958 but it sure sounds, uh, off in today’s world.

Incidentally the high temperature in Nashville that day was 42, not exactly bathing suit weather.

 

 

1930 D-B Band

Dobyns-Bennett Band Directed by John Philip Sousa Himself Playing One of His Compositions!

It had been 62 years but Bill Highsmith had never forgotten it. Highsmith, who was a member of the D-B band in 1930, recalled the experience of playing for Sousa for the Times-News in 1992.

“The band had gone to Johnson City to attend a Sousa concert, and the D-B band director (S.T. Witt) arranged for Sousa to direct the band during intermission.”

Highsmith played second clarinet. Sousa directed the band through a version of "El Capitan,” at the conclusion of which, Highsmith recalled, Sousa said, “It was certainly fine work boys.”

(Apparently Sousa didn’t notice the “girls” in the band: clarinetist Bertha Lehman, cornet player Lucille Blankenbecler or saxophonists Mary Gladys Brown and Alice McNeer.)

The Kingsport newspaper gave scant coverage to the Sousa concert but the Johnson City newspapers went all in.

The Johnson City Staff-News writer F.W.H. gave one of the most effusive reviews I have ever read in any publication:

John Philip Sousa, now on his thirty-eighth annual tour with his band, gave two concerts at the Capitol Theatre yesterday.

That's a complete description.

If I had taken voluminous notes and attempted a suitable story, I couldn’t have described it; and right after a Sousa concert I haven't any sense at all. If you were there, you know what I mean; If you weren't it's your own fault, and you don't deserve to know anything about it.

Somehow Sousa's band, with Sousa leading, sounds exactly like Sousa. It's a part of American history, civilization and culture, and is still civilizing and cultivating higher ideals.

Sousa was observing his seventy-sixth birthday. During the intermission last night, Mrs. Clyde Smith, president of the Wednesday Morning Music Club, which sponsored the appearance of the band here, presented Mr. Sousa with a birthday cake - lighted candles and all - and, on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce, a huge bouquet of chrysanthemums was presented by Mrs. Henry Burbage. Sousa bowed his acknowledgement feelingly.

But what has 76 years got to do with it anyway? The virile Lieutenant-Commander appears with the baton just like he did when I first heard his band some twenty odd years ago, and just like the other times since then.

"O, yes," he said between acts, "I'm still working. I am composing another opera. I had two acts completed when the writer of the libretto died, and I am waiting to find someone to write the third act, so I can finish the music." There's a chance for somebody.

"Music appreciation in America is growing rapidly," he commented, "The schools and colleges are aiding tremendously in developing it. I enjoy coming in contact with orchestras and hands such as you have in your schools here. It bespeaks a better future for the young folks, in many ways besides their music."

He mentioned his newest March, "Royal Welch Fusiliers," composed only a few weeks ago. It was on the evening program. There was a thrill for the Johnson City High School orchestra and the Kingsport school band during, the matinee performance. Sousa himself conducted them in special selections. The young folks expressed the thrill in their performances, which brought prolonged applause from the audience. The band played one of Sousa's marches -conducted by the composer.

I do recall that the programmed numbers represent about one third of the concerts. Encores - insistent encores - added twice that many more selections, both to band numbers and those by soloists:

Miss Marjorio Moody--my, what a voice!

William Tong, cornet--or was it a combination of flute and tuba?

Edward J. Hency, saxophone that sang, or wept, or laughed, just as he wanted it to.

William T. Paulson, xylophones – it can't be done!

And the saxophone double quartet - that made everybody laugh, and want to dance.

And the martial row that led the "Stars and Stripes Forever" - seven cornets, five trombones, six piccolos, with the balance of the band behind them.

Sweet old favorites in encore numbers – and Gosh, here I'm trying to describe something I can't!

The two audiences were large. Sullins and V. I. (Virginia Intermont) of Bristol, sent large delegations by motor to the concerts. Scores from the Teachers College and Milligan College took advantage of the chance: other scores of school pupils.

It was Sousa Day. Flags were flown in the city in honor of the coming of the March King and his band. They arrived shortly after noon in three cars attached to Southern No. 26. They left last night for Greeneville, S. C.

 

(For my musical friends, here are the Sousa band programs as reported by F.W.H., whoever that was.)

Evening Program

Overture, "Carnival Romaine," (Berlioz).

Cornet solo, "Tower of Jewels," (Tong)-Mr. William Tong.

Suite, "The Three S's" – a. "Morning Journals" (Strauss); b. "The Lost Chord" (Sullivan); c. "Mars and Venus" (Sousa).

Vocal solo, "Staccato Polka" (Mulder)-Miss Marjorie Moody.

"Holy Grail" from "Parsifal" (Wagner).

Interval.

Spanish Rhapsody, "Espana," (Chabrier).

Saxophone solo, "Beautiful Colorado," (Deluca) - Mr. Edward J. Heney.

New March, "Royal Welch Fusiliers," (Sousa).

Xylophone solo, "Liebesfreud," (Kreisler) - Mr. William T. Paulson.

Cowboy breakdown, "Turkey in the Straw," (Guion).

Matinee

Overture, "Rienzi." (Wagner).

Cornet solo, "Southern Cross," (Clarke) - Mr. William Tong.

Suite, "Last Days of Pompeii," (Sousa).

Vocal solo, “Love's Radiant Hour" (Sousa) - Miss Marjorie Moody.

"Waltz of the Flowers," (Tschalkowsky).

Interval.

"A Study in Rhythms," (Sousa).

Saxophone solo, "Fantasie in F Minor” (Gurewich) Mr. Edward  J. Heney.

New March, "George Washington Bicentennial," (Sousa).

Xylophone solo, "Parade of the Toy Regiment," (Green) - Mr. William T. Paulson.

Introduction to Third Act of "Lohengrin," (Wagner).

 

Sousa died two years and a day after he directed the D-B band.

Kingsport Wins Cage Championship - Again - 77 Years Later

 

The Kingsport Times News Headline in 1945, the Last Time D-B Won the State Championship in Basketball

Saturday evening March 19, 2022, D-B won the state again!

Here is a column I wrote seven years ago about that long ago basketball championship. 

It was 1945, seventy years ago, February was turning into March, and, like this year, the Tennessee high school basketball tournament was beginning. But it was a much different tournament then. There were no classifications, all the teams were grouped in one big pot. And there wasn’t a girls’ tournament. Just the boys. (Tennessee’s black schools held their own tournament.)

The action began with the district – D-B was home to the District 15 tournament – with one team advancing from each district to the Regional. There were four regionals and this area was in what was called the Maryville Region. Two teams from each region would then advance to an eight-team state tournament, which was slated for Nashville that season.

The prospects for Dobyns-Bennett were not especially bright heading into that postseason. The team had finished second in the Big Five conference, well back of Science Hill, which had closed the season on a sixteen-game winning streak. And one of D-B’s starters, center Paul Cloud, was out with an appendicitis attack. (He did not return.)

But the team managed to win the District 15 tournament on their home floor and earn a spot in the regional in Maryville. There they beat Knoxville Young and Johnson City before falling to Chattanooga Central in four overtimes in the final. Fortunately for D-B the top two from the regional went to the state tournament.

Their opponent would be McMinnville. The other six teams in the state tournament were Grove High of Paris, Savannah, Linden, Nashville West, Chattanooga Central, and Flintville.

Let’s cut to the chase: D-B defeated Chattanooga Central 38-32 in the final for its only state tournament championship. Cecil Puckett and Herb Hoover led Kingsport with 12 points each in the final.

But D-B’s victory didn’t get the banner headline in the next day’s newspaper that it should have. What could be more important in Kingsport than D-B winning the state tournament in basketball?

How about the Third Army taking the German city of Coblenz? There was a world war going on.

In fact the game wasn’t even on radio in Kingsport. The Sunday paper reported that more than 100 people flooded the newspaper’s phone lines beginning at 11 p.m., seeking to find out who won the game.

You might guess there was no radio broadcast by reading the newspaper story by sports editor Roy Elkins: it reads like a radio play by play.

The game didn’t start till 10:30 p.m. Kingsport time. How did the Times News get such a detailed story in the paper in such a short amount of time, considering how primitive the technology was in 1945 compared to today? No laptops, no internet. The type was set by hand.

I asked my buddy Grady Amann, whose father was a typesetter in Kingsport in 1945, how they would have done it.

“The writer and his spotter at the game had earlier secured a dedicated courtside phone to the sports department. He called the info to a sports writer back at the Kingsport Times who typed the running story then handed it in short takes to anchorman who proof-read and then fired it to the composing room.”

So the writer was actually telling the story as it happened: a play by play. And a sportswriter back in Kingsport was taking it over the phone and rewriting it as it came in.

“The composing room's copy editor would farm the takes - usually three to four paragraphs each - to his best Linotype operators. Then the pages would be built bottom up, leaving space at top for the lead. Usually the heads would already be written. One for win, one for lose.”

So an editor would have two headlines typeset and ready to go:

Kingsport Wins Cage Championship (the headline that actually ran)

or

Kingsport Drops Cage Championship

“Obviously there would have been many column inches saved for a story this big. Disposable wire stories of different sizes would be at hand to plug any last-minute holes.”

It was a busy production team at the newspaper that night. Basketball coverage got a five-column headline but it couldn’t match war coverage, which dominated with a seven-column banner headline on the Coblenz story and seven other war-related stories on the front page.

The 2015 state basketball tournament starts this week with a much more complicated format: A, AA, AAA, II-A, II-AA, boys, girls, multiple sites for games. And that’s just in Tennessee. There’s a whole other tournament in Virginia.

What isn’t as complicated in 2015 is the technology for reporting the results. It’s much easier. The hard part is getting through the ice and snow to the games.

Front page of the school newspaper in 1945.

Kingsport's Merry Prankster

 

Turf 

1948-2022

RIP

If you didn’t know him, you might wonder about that name. Was he named for a piece of sod? Turf? Why was he called Turf?

Turf was actually a term of endearment, a shortened version of his last name, McInturff. His full name was James Calvin McInturff.

But if you knew him, he was just Turf.

Of course, he wasn’t always Turf. When I first met him, in junior high when we played on the same City League basketball team, he was Jimmy.

But it wasn’t long until the Legend of Turf began.

Some remember it beginning the day he rode a minibike through Study Hall at Dobyns-Bennett wearing a Santa Claus suit and yelling “Ho, ho, ho.” Others recall the day he squirted a shaving cream beard on his face and ran shirtless down the main corridor of the school, shouting “Merry Christmas” as he passed each classroom.

Or maybe it was both. At the same time. Memories conflate and transform so maybe it was a motorbike in the main hall or a shirtless sprint through Study Hall.

The Legend of Turf was cemented early in his senior year when he located an ancient Cadillac hearse on a car lot in Bristol. He took up a collection from his merry band of pranksters, who called themselves The Trolls, and plunked $200 down on the used car dealer’s desk and drove off.

Soon The Hearse, as it became known, was completely associated with Turf and was making appearances all over town.

Anytime a yard got toilet-papered, there were always Hearse sightings reported nearby.

 When Dobyns-Bennett played Tennessee High, the Hearse led a Viking Funeral down Broad Street, with the Kingsport Police Department lending a hand for traffic control. Turf had talked the KPD into helping even though it probably wasn’t necessary. The Hearse was the parade.

The most famous appearance of The Hearse was when Turf sneaked it into the 1966 Fourth of July Parade, crashing the procession from a side street, anticipating “Animal House” by a decade. There’s a famous picture of that ride but it can’t be printed because the newspaper would have to black out a few hand gestures, quite a few, and then you wouldn’t be able to see Turf or The Hearse.

Despite all his antics Turf maintained perfect attendance through all twelve grades of Kingsport city schools: never sick, never ditched, never expelled.

Turf was the glue who held together The Trolls, a makeshift D-B gang that was all about fun. Even as the group spread out all over the country, and the world, after graduation – to Knoxville, Johnson City, Memphis, Birmingham, Vietnam – Turf kept everyone connected with frequent phone calls and letters. And as they moved into adulthood and fatherhood he kept the group together with road trips, to Tennessee bowl games and the Kentucky Derby.

Turf had gone to four different colleges, leaving each for a different – always hilarious – reason and finally getting a law degree at a YMCA law school in Nashville. No surprise to those who knew Turf; his dad was legendary Kingsport trial attorney Burkett McInturff. Turf may have been the son of a legend but he created his own legend.

He eventually set up his law practice, trial law, of course, just like dad, and his life in Birmingham, Alabama.

So when word reached Tennessee a couple of weeks ago that Turf had passed away, phone lines and email servers threatened to crash as Turf’s friends spread the news, each remembering a different story: the Daytona Beach trip culminating with Turf riding a jackass, the Orange Bowl journey that almost ended before it began when The Hearse conked out shortly after departing Kingsport.

That's Turf in the middle, riding the, uh, burro. 

The one story they all laughed about was The Night of the Half Moon when Turf and The Trolls, under cover of darkness, hoisted an outhouse to the top of the brand-new D-B Dome. The next day the Kingsport Times published a front-page photo, submitted anonymously, of the moonlit silhouette of the outhouse and a shadowy figure. It can now be revealed that that shadowy figure was Turf admiring his work.

Turf may be gone but Turf Tales live on.

Those who knew him can’t finish one story without telling another, all told with a big smile and an even bigger laugh, which is exactly what Turf brought to the daily lives of his friends.

No one tells a Turf story in the past tense. It’s like he’s still around, ready to create another memorable adventure.

Turf leaves behind three children, exactly the combination you would expect, a reflection of him: a lawyer (who is married to a lawyer), a recent law school grad, and, naturally, a wild child.

The wild child remembers her dad the way he would want to be remembered: “He wore his passion and uniqueness proudly. He was a wonderful father, the kind who told you every day that the sun didn’t rise until you opened your eyes. He never hesitated to be goofy and glowed when making those he loved laugh. He appreciated flowers and fine whiskey and spoke endlessly of his respect for his parents and friends. He lived an incredible fearless life full of legendary moments.”

This was originally published in the Kingsport Times News on Thursday March 17, 2022.

Still "Turf" - 2020

  

 The Original Legendary McInturff, Turf's Dad

Burkett McInturff, standing center

 

 Turf's dad, Kingsport lawyer Burkett McInturff, was every bit as much a legend as the son. 

When he died in 2012, I wrote this tribute to the father:

Burkett McInturf’s obituary said he was 94. It didn’t say if that was self-reported or from some other source.

You see Burkett had a thing about his age.

A half dozen or so years ago, I saw his son Jim at Wallace News. I asked Jim what brought him to town. Jim is an attorney in Alabama. He said his dad was in the hospital. Then he told me the story of when he first arrived at his dad’s bedside. “The nurse took me aside. She said, ‘Your dad sure is in good shape for an 85-year-old man.’ I started laughing. I told her, ‘Ma’am, he’s still lying about his age. He’s 87.’”

Burkett McInturf was a legend in Kingsport. And not just because of his legal skills, which were legendary enough. Burkett was a character, one of the last of his breed.

For almost half a century he was Kingsport’s go-to defense attorney. His reputation was so legendary that once another local defense attorney, in his summation to the jury, said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I can assure you that my client is innocent. If he were guilty, I wouldn’t be standing before you. He would have hired Burkett McInturf as his attorney.”

A few years back my buddy Jim Beck was testifying in a robbery trial – Jim is a pharmacist and he had been robbed. Burkett was defending the accused. Jim told me Burkett said, “Dr. Beck, do you see the man that you allege robbed you in this courtroom?”

Jim said, “I said, ‘I can’t see him but I think he’s sitting right behind you.’”

Burkett refused to move and Jim had to climb down from the witness stand to identify the defendant.

More recently former judge Roger Thayer told me he was downtown and noticed the door to Burkett’s office was open. “I was early for my appointment so I decided I’d go up and see how Burkett was doing.” He found Burkett on the floor with papers and law books spread out all around him. “I said, ‘Burkett, are you still handling cases?’ He said, ‘I am. I had two last week. I couldn’t hear a word they said in either one and I won them both.’”

When they installed the new roundabout at the intersection of Broad and Market, Sharon and Perry at nearby Central Barbershop decided to take bets on who would be the first person to drive through the circle. But they quit the pool because everyone took Burkett. Sure enough, two days after the roundabout was installed, Burkett plowed his Cadillac right through the center.

Burkett was a regular for breakfast and lunch at the Jan Mar restaurant, which was just a few steps from his office. He would shamble down the sidewalk. In his later years Burkett walked about as well as he drove.

He was there last Thursday in his customary spot in a booth against the wall, his napkin tied around his neck like a bib.

The next day at 12:51 p.m., about the time he usually paid his bill and began his walk back to work, he died. He was 94. Or 92, depending on who was doing the telling.

1934-35 Kingsport City Directory

 

 Downtown Kingsport in the Depression

 The technical title of the book was “Baldwin’s and Times’ Kingsport City Directory 1934-1935,” seemingly a collaboration between the newspaper and the venerable city directory company. It was more a marriage of economic interests. The Times would sponsor and promote the City Directory in exchange for advertising space.

By 1934 the Kingsport City Directory was already a fat 597 pages. And it was chocked full of information:

It was primarily a “Residence directory,” alphabetical by last name “containing the full name, husband’s or wife’s name, number of children under sixteen, designation of home ownership, position and employer and home address of all persons over 16 years of age residing or employed in Kingsport.”

There was this guarantee: “The information contained herein was taken by trained enumerators in a house-to-house canvas of the city and adjacent territory and checked with data supplied by employers.”

The Residence Directory listed everyone and every business and organization from “AME Zion Church, L.A. Lawson pastor, 813 Maple” to “Zolman, Bruce, emp. Tennessee Eastman Corp, r. 150 W. Wanola.”

There was also a “Business directory” with companies listed by category from “Advertising Campaigns” - Howard Duckett Co., 202 Cherokee - to “Women’s Underwear,” GOLDETTE, Fuller & Hillman, 124 Broad, and KAYSER, The Ladies Shoppe, 148 Broad.

But wait, there’s more: a Numerical Telephone Directory” beginning with phone number 1 – Mack Hampton Store - to phone number 9113 - Standard Oil.

And “The Street Guide,” where I got the Broad Street listing. It begins with “Arch Street, west from s of w Sullivan (Kingsport Press)” with the first house at 605 Arch, home to Forbes, R. R. and Linkous, C. D., and ending with Yadkin Street “east from Holston Lodge to Cherry to N Myrtle” and beginning with 701 Yadkin, occupied by Grant, R.Y., telephone 817-J.

 Here's Broad Street in 1934.

Because the listing in the directory is in numerical order, I have taken the liberty of separating the east side of Broad from the west side, because you walk up one side and down the other not zig-zagging from one store to another across the street. I’ve also added a few annotations and newspaper ads from that year.

 BROAD STREET in 1934

(Principal Business Street) north from Main at RR Station to and beyond city limits (dividing line and starting point for numbering of all streets east and west).

 

West side of Broad Street (100 block):

102 K'port Drug Store - phone number 39

110 Tipton Bldg

ROOMS

1-5 Tipton, E.W. phys., Reed, W.H. phys. - 18

6 Vacant

7-8-9 Frye, Chas. G. - 446

10-11 Depew, E.O. phys. - 665

12-15 Vacant

16 Aesque, John

17 Renfro, P.P.

18 Pilot Life Ins. Co - 254

114 K'port Fruit & News Co. - 85

116-120 Dobyns Taylor Hdwe

118 Shafer's Lunch - 48-J

118 Nelms Bldg

ROOMS

1 St. Dominic's Catholic

2-3 Moore & Walker real estate - 963

5 Collins, I.T. atty. - 444

6 Snavely, M.L. photogr

7 Nelms, Walker bldg. mg.

8 Everhart, Ola

9 Alley, H.E. civ eng

10 Vacant

122 Bee Hive (The) clo

124 Fuller & Hillman clo - 310

126 Barnes, W.H. ins., real estate - 233

Highsmith, L.L. phy - 387

McDowell's Studio photo - 233

Smith, S.L., dentist-289

128 Badgett's Army Store - 229

130 Sobel's clo - 408

132 Saylor, R.T. - 213

134 Holston Drug Co - 530

138 Bailey, T.H. jeweler - 560

140 Strand Theater - 206

142 Strand Barber Shop - 575

144 Federal Clothing Stores - 208

146 Johnson, J. Fred & Co - 42

146½ Gilbert, B.B.

Millye's Beauty Salon - 374

Wilson, J.E. dentist - 98

152 Hicks Bldg

ROOMS

2-3 Hodge, J.V. phy - 524

4-5 Home Ins Agency - 8

6-7-8 Herndon, C.T. Jr, atty - 364

9-10 Hoge, E.A. dentist - 207

11-12 Todd, John R. Jr. atty - 59

13-15 Barger, Ray - 887-J

16-17 Corns, E.M. clinic

18-19 Corns, E.M. phys - 722

156 Palace Barber Shop & Dry Cleaning - 617

Palace Fruit & News

158 Ladies Shoppe clo

Modern Beauty Shop - 477

160 Clinchfield Drug Co

Freels Investment Corp

East side of Broad Street (100 block)

107 Weinberg's Sample Shop - phone 70-W

109 Bank of K'port Bldg

Poston, H.R. atty

Bowlin, W.H. atty - 643

Robertson, B.F. – 95

111 Caton's Barber Shop

111½  Barker, N.E. 783-J

Brown, A.L.

113 K'port Candy Kitchen – 280

115 Jarrett Furniture Co. - 150

117 Nall, John B. Bldg

ROOMS

1 Depew, J.D. atty.

2-3 Armstrong-Purkey-McCoy, gen contrs - 501

4-6 Nall, J.B. real est. - 180

5-7 Mingledorff, J.L. dentist

14-15 Dodson, T.A. atty. – 158

119 K'port Office Sup Co – 509

125 Young, Mamie J. dressmkr - 466

127-131 Baylor-Nelms Furn Co – 500

129 Vacant

      131 Vacant

133 Mallis Rest - 88

135 Masonic Hall

Flora, J.A. phys - 362

137 Showker, S.L. (Inc) dept store – 20

141-43 Parks-Belk clo - 221

145 Sterchi Brothers Stores – 675

147 Aunt Fanny's Tea Room - 370

149 Hash, P.K. jeweler - 272

151-53 Penney J.C. Co – 103

Vacant lot (State Theatre would be built on this space in 1936.)

 (Market Street intersects)

 West side of Broad Street (200 block)

200-206 Charles Stores Co (Inc) - 149

204 New Tipton Bldg

ROOMS

1-4 Harris & Graves real est - 114

5-6 Kirkpatrick, Carl atty

7 Bond, Napoleon atty

8-9 Scott, H.S. phys

10 Blevins & Neufer tailors

11-12 Clara's Beauty Shop - 866

208-10 Woolworth F.W. & Co. - 746-W

212 Blair, Jas. S. D.O. - 183

Campbell, J.W. dentist - 223

Lofton & Sanders attys - 192

Met Life Ing Co - 110

Moss, R.P. dentist - 564

Pannell, R.W. chiro - 460

214-216 Morgan’s Dept Store – 993

218-220 Kress S.H. & Co

 

East side of Broad Street (200 block)

201 Western Union Tel Co - 144

201 Personal Finance Corp - 840

205 Broad St. Fruit and News Co - 398

207 Martin's Barber Shop & Billiard Parlor

211 K'port Industrial Bk Bldg

K'port Industrial Bank (Inc) - 124

ROOMS

1 Vaughan, J.E. atty

3 Bandy, T.R. atty - 134

4-5 Longworth, H.W. phys - 682

6-7-8 Worley, Hauk & Minter attys - 369

11 Dryden, A.N. architect - 343

12-20 Ferguson, Shelburne

17 Garrett H.L. - 602

247 Montgomery Ward & Co – 311

253-255 First Nat Bk Bldg

First Nat Bk - 141, 163

Bennett & Edwards ins - 5108

K'port Bldg & Loan Assn

Platt S P & Co

US Fidelity & Guaranty - 5108

 

(Center Street intersects)

In 1934 the block between Center and New Streets, which would later be home to J. Fred’s, Penney’s, Woolworth’s and McCrory’s, was vacant except for a wooden bandstand. For many years this was where the American Legion Carnival was staged.

(New Street intersects)

Post Office - 357

(Broad at the Circle)

K'port Inn - 5103

422 K'port Util - 5106

(Circle intersects)

 

Annotations, etc.

Weinberg’s, which also had stores in Bristol, Johnson City and Elizabethton, filed for bankruptcy in August 1935, another victim of the Depression.

Badgett’s Army Store had a second location at 136 Main Street. My father, a recent high school graduate, accepted a position at that Main Street Badgett’s the next year, in Nov. 1935. He would commute from Fall Branch until he and my mother married in 1939.  

Ola Everhart, who had an office in the Nelms building, was the lyricist on the song “Cherry Hill Disaster,” about the 1933 tornado that swept through the Cherry Hill neighborhood of west Kingsport. Five were killed and another 30 injured. The song begins, “As the day was nearly ended, there came a dreadful storm. People sought the shelter of their homes/ Oh! The lightning it was flashing….” Music was by the Reverend Carroll Skeen. Proceeds from the sale of song sheets went to help those affected by the storm.

B.B. Gilbert, who shared space with J. Fred Johnson department store, was a studio photographer.

Aunt Fanny’s Tea Room, next to Sterchi’s furniture, didn’t make it to 1935. Its store front was later taken over by the Darling Shop.

H.L. Garrett, who shared office space – and perhaps a phone – with Shelburne Ferguson, was City Attorney in 1934. Ferguson had just finished a term as Mayor. He would soon become Law Court Judge.

S.P. (Sherman Phelps) Platt, who had been a neighbor of John B. Dennis in Oyster Bay, New York, came to Kingsport in 1919 at the invitation of Dennis, who installed him as assistant to the president of Kingsport Improvement Corporation, J. Fred Johnson. He built a number of homes before eventually settling on a career in life insurance. In 1934 he had just joined Bennett & Edwards as a vice-president. 

R.P. Moss, dentist, and father of dentist George Moss, had his office upstairs at 212 Broad. His grandson Bill Moss told me when he was renovating the building in 2010 that he found hundreds of extracted teeth in one wall. If you wondered what dentists did with those teeth, now you know.

Vacation in Kingsport! In 1964!

 

Kingsport's 1964 Travel Brochure

The Tourism Situation in 1964

The Kingsport Inn was long gone. Once Kingsport’s crown jewel, a luxury hotel that had opened the same year the city was founded, 1917, the Inn had fallen on hard times in the fifties. By 1957 city sanitarian E. Glenn Smith was threatening to close the Inn down because of a decade-long record of failed health inspections. In 1959 the owners, descendants of John B. Dennis, put the Inn up for sale. It was purchased by Knoxville’s Miller’s department store, which had long had its eye on Kingsport for expansion. But when Miller’s got the chance to buy its chief Knoxville competitor, the Knox Department Store, it abandoned its plans to expand to upper east Tennessee, selling the Inn to the city and a group of downtown merchants. The next year the Inn was razed and a parking lot took its place.

The Kingsport Inn in its glory days

In 1964 A.B. Coleman, head of the Kingsport Chamber of Commerce, decided the city needed a sales pamphlet to boost tourism.

And thus was born “Your Kingsport Host,” a brochure that touted all of Kingsport’s motels, banquet facilities and tourist sites.

“Your Kingsport Host” listed 15 hotels with 497 guest rooms. (For comparison’s sake today the Meadowview Marriott alone has 305 rooms.)

The city offered 13 banquet facilities that began with the Civic Auditorium which could accommodate up to 800 and going all the way to Shoney’s, which at the time could handle 50.

Nearby “Points Of Interest” included five local lakes, Barter Theatre and Andrew Johnson’s Home. 

 

Brickey Motel

Brickey’s is listed first in the brochure even though it had the fewest rooms of any of the motels, only eight. It was first because of alphabetical order but I think it should be first anyway; I think it is the most noteworthy of the group because of one guest.

The first year Brickey’s was open – 1955 - a scraggly bunch of musicians pulled in one afternoon. They were to play at the Civic Auditorium that night. Owner Leonard Brickey’s daughter Jean Harris told me in 2005, “Daddy was reluctant to rent to them they looked so bad.” But he did and that’s where Elvis and his band checked in on the afternoon of September 22, 1955 when they played the Civic Auditorium.

Jean recalled, “Dad was picky. He wouldn’t allow just anyone to stay here. He said these boys drove up in a Cadillac and he just about didn’t rent to them. They had long sideburns and greasy hair. Dad said they came in about 3 p.m. and left about 5. He said they looked all right after they showered.” 

He told Jean this story a couple of days after it happened. “I dug out the registration card and it said, ‘Elvis Presley and party.’” Jean says she doesn’t think they spent the night. “I think they just used the room to clean up before their show.”  She also doesn’t know which of the motel’s eight room they stayed in. The registration card has been lost.

The Downtowner

When the announcement was made in 1959 that a Memphis company was planning a five-story hotel in downtown Kingsport, no one said that The Downtowner was supposed to replace the soon-to-be-demolished Kingsport Inn but it was understood – one downtown hotel for another.

The Downtowner was soon flourishing with civic clubs moving their meetings there and businessmen and women using the restaurant for meetings. But the brief spark of commerce didn’t last. 1973 began a period of changing ownerships and changing names: in ’73 it became the Port-O-Kings, the Kingsport Motor Inn in 1975 and in 1977 the TraveLodge.

When the hotel was sold, yet again, in 1982 a business article in the Kingsport Times called the barely-two-decades-old hotel “a downtown Kingsport eyesore.” The new owners vowed to turn it into a plush hotel with the new name Quality Inn.

Two years later the National Content Liquidators held a public sale – everything must go – with double beds selling for $45 and two drawer chests priced at $20.

The building was demolished just after Christmas 1992.

 

 

Homestead Hotel

The Homestead was built in 1921 as the Grant Leather Corporation Clubhouse for exclusive use of the company’s employees and guests. But two months after opening it was changed to a commercial hotel and renamed The Homestead.

By 1967 my friends and I had nicknamed it The Bumstead, a nod to its clientele.

But when it opened, it was a pretty swell place. The Kingsport Times noted, “The Homestead has ninety guest rooms, and the building is so arranged that all of these are outside rooms. The building is electrically lighted, has shower and tub baths on every floor, and is protected from fire by the sprinkler system. Each guest room has running water, a large wardrobe, and a double window. The furniture in all the rooms is of Flemish gray, and matches the finishing of the walls and woodwork. The cafeteria is said to be one of the most complete and convenient this side of New York. The Homestead and the Kingsport Inn together afford ample hotel accommodations to all guests in the Magic City.” 

 

The Greenwood Motel

The Greenwood opened in 1956 with a unique layout.  The motel fronted on Ft. Henry Drive but it had a back entrance on old Bristol Highway, now Memorial Court, a very steep, narrow one-lane driveway.

In 1959 when my next-door neighbor Darnell Shankel got married, he used that to great advantage.

He didn't want all his friends chasing him and his bride as they left on their honeymoon. So he parked his car in the Greenwood parking lot. Then when they left the church, my father drove the couple with all the groomsmen and bridesmaids chasing in their own cars. My dad went down Bristol Highway then turned into the Greenwood back entrance. Darnell and his now-wife jumped out, raced down the hill to their car and took off. The pursuing wedding party had to sit there and honk. By the time my father let them pass, the bride and groom were long gone and none of the chase party knew which way they went.  

 Tennessee Motor Lodge

The Tennessee Motor Lodge began life in 1959 as a planned Howard Johnson Motel and Restaurant. It took more than two years – and a lawsuit over a driveway entrance (!) – before Howard Johnson’s opened in June 1962 with 63 rooms – significantly fewer than the original plan of 110.

You can be forgiven if you don’t remember a Howard Johnson’s in Kingsport. Because after all that hassle, four years later it was gone, the restaurant replaced by a Shoney’s and the motel rebranded as Tennessee Motor Lodge.

What was once the kid-friendly Howard Johnson’s, with 28 different flavors of ice cream, had by 2000 become the Westside Inn and Hog Wild Saloon, a notorious nightspot that was closed for good in 2018 after a deadly shooting inside. (Over the previous two decades the saloon had made frequent appearances in the police log for everything from stabbings to armed robbery to attempted murder. It was also the object of a prostitution sting!) The building was demolished in 2019.