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.