End of a Bowling Era

Warpath Lanes shortly before 1960 grand opening. 

The Lanes No Longer Own Warpath Lanes

Dennis Lane, whose parents founded Warpath Lanes, sold the bowling alley earlier this week. The lanes won't close but Dennis has decided it's time to retire. I remember when the Lanes first opened in 1960.

The excitement reached a fever pitch in my neighborhood this time in 1960. Warpath Lanes was about to open!

There had never been a bowling alley in east Kingsport. In fact there had never been a bowling alley anywhere in Kingsport except downtown.

The first bowling alley, which opened in 1920, was in the YMCA, which was located about where City Hall is today. In the thirties B&M Bowling Parlor operated at 137 Broad Street (now home of Anchor Antiques). Later Kingsport Bowling Center opened at 315 Cherokee. By 1960 it had relocated to Cumberland in the building where Olde Tyme Auction now operates.

But Warpath Lanes would be only 300 yards from my house, an easy walk, even carrying a bowling ball, assuming some day I would own a bowling ball.

David Good, who lived even closer, only a couple of blocks away on Warpath Lane, remembers walking over most every day to check on the construction progress. “They’d let us go in and walk around.”

By June 1960 the $350,000 building was completed, the snack bar stocked, the offices furnished. All that was missing were the lanes.

And missing. And missing. And missing.

All the little kids in my neighborhood, who like David Good, walked over daily to check on the progress, were getting anxious.

“Soon,” Mr. Lane would tell us. “Soon.”

I found out what caused the delay ten years ago.

Dennis Lane, founder Jim Lane’s son and, until this week, the owner, told me the story.

“Dad had given Brunswick a $5,000 deposit on the equipment. He had originally looked at a building downtown on the corner of Cumberland and Main. But he decided to build his own building.”

Here is where it gets cutthroat.

“Larry Carrier, who later built the Speedway, owned a bowling alley in Bristol. He wanted to open up in Kingsport so after dad passed on the downtown building, he took it. He went to Brunswick and told them if they would delay delivering Dad’s equipment he would buy from them when he opened up a third bowling alley. So they delayed our shipment.”

And delayed. And delayed.

“Finally Dad went to them and demanded his deposit back. That’s when he went to AMF.”

And that’s why Warpath Lanes had, and still has AMF equipment.

And that’s how Larry’s Lanes opened in what many of us think of as the Slip-Not Belting building on April 8, 1960, four months before Warpath Lanes opened.

That was the beginning of a bowling boom in Kingsport. One year later Bowl-Mor opened on Stone Drive giving the city three brand spanking new bowling alleys!

Bowling was so big that the Times-News inaugurated a weekly bowling column, Bowling Beat, written by Bob Smith.

(Larry’s Lanes closed in January 1965; Carrier blamed the closure on a fire at his Bristol alley.)

When Warpath Lanes finally did open the first week of August 1960, the local kids, including me, swarmed the place.

Most of us had never bowled a line in our lives but we had watched bowling on TV: “Make That Spare,” “Championship Bowling,” and “Bowling for Dollars.” We knew the names Carmen Salvino and Steve Nagy and Don Carter, great bowlers of that era. We just didn’t know how to bowl.

I suspect Jim and Frances Lane cringed every time they walked through the alley and heard the sound of bouncing balls from inexperienced bowlers who didn’t so much bowl as they did fling.

A month after opening business really boomed…at the snack bar. At least between 11:45 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. when the kids from Robinson crowded in, ordering lunch from the grill and sprawling around on the seats everywhere to eat. (We were allowed to leave school during lunch!)

I can remember standing three and four deep around the counter to get my hot dog.

The grill food was wonderful, and it wasn’t just because I was a kid and any restaurant food tasted wonderful. Jim and Frances Lane had hired W. B. Cliatt, former owner of the Sherwood Restaurant, to run the grill.

One of the highlights of my young life came that winter at Warpath Lanes. David Good and I won the junior doubles event of the AJBC Christmas Tournament, 1060 pins to 1050 pins.

Okay, okay, if you look up the results in the old newspaper clipping, it will say that Jim Beck and Joe Duncan won by that score.

But when David and I left the alley that afternoon, we were the winners. They called us later to say there had been a ten-pin error in each of our scores and that actually we had finished second.

I say, and I still say, once you walk across the threshold as the winner, you are the winner. Even if my trophy says second place.

David Good (here spelled Goode) and I wuz robbed of our rightful title. 

 

1934 Vacation Guide to East Tennessee

 

Our Glorious Vacationland - East Tennessee in 1934

 The Kingsport Times published its first ever – and only for 41 years – Vacation Guide in 1934, 12 pages of stories and advertising touting our “Glorious Vacationland.” “No section of the United States offers greater delights for the summer tourist or greater pleasures for the summer vacationist than our own mountainous section of East Tennessee, western North Carolina, and southwestern Virginia.”

Yes, 1934, the height of the Depression.

And while Kingsport had felt the Depression much less than most of the country, it had felt the Depression.

The Kingsport Times reported that in 1928 there were 174 retail stores in Kingsport employing 466 people. By 1933 that number had fallen to 116 retail stores employing only 309 people.

But forget your troubles, dear 1934 readers, and take a vacation to one of our advertisers’ glorious spots.

What did Depression-era tourists want? According to the Times Vacation Guide, a place to swim, enjoy mineral springs, dance and not have to drive far. The farthest vacation suggestion/advertiser was two hours away in Knoxville: the Hotel Andrew Johnson or Whittle Springs Resort. Closer to home were Tate Springs in Grainger County, Mineral Hill Springs in Bean Station and Galbraith Springs near Rogersville. There was even an ad suggesting a vacation trip to the “all concrete swimming pool” at Sur-Joi in Johnson City or dancing the night away – and also drinking the night away – at the Green Parrot Beer Garden, one mile outside the Kingsport city limits on the Johnson City Highway. Talk about easy on gas.

And if you didn’t want to drive, ET&WNC Motor Coach would be happy to let you leave the driving to them. Lacking luggage? See Dobyns-Taylor. Dirty clothes? Call Kingsport Laundry. No clothes? Visit Fuller & Hillman. Can’t afford it? First National Bank was there to loan you the funds or help you save for next summer.

If you want to drive back in time for a Depression-Era vacation, here is the Kingsport Times 1934 Vacation Guide.

The “Guide” started on the Editorial Page with his pitch for vacationing locally:

“In this beautiful ‘region of the clouds’ we have everything to make summer vacations a delight. There are splendid hard-surfaced highways for the motorists; there are streams filled with trout and bass for the angler; there are crystal-clear lakes, rivers and artificial pools for the swimmer; there are glorious mountain bridal paths, hemmed in by masses of wild flowers, for those who delight in hiking or horse-back riding; there are many golf courses which rank among the best in the country, and numerous tennis courts in every town and summer resort.

“In short we have everything to offer the tourist or summer vacationist that any other section of the United States has and far more than many other sections which have, perhaps, been more widely advertised. This is the reason and we think a very good reason, why The Times is publishing today a tabloid section on the territory surrounding Kingsport as a ‘vacation land.’”

What followed was 12 pages of puffery about the area.

 

Don't forget a trip to the beauty salon before heading out. 

My father would be hired by Badgett's Army Store a year later, in 1935.

 

According to a 1984 column in the Knoxville News-Sentinel by Carson Brewer, a night at the Wonderland Club Hotel in 1934 was $4.

 

The Andrew Jackson Coffee Shoppe was located in the Andrew Jackson Tavern. It is no longer standing. 

The four mountains surrounding Kinzel Springs Hotel were named Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The hotel was razed in 1957 due to "old age."

 Mineral Hill Springs Hotel was leveled in the 40s to make way for Cherokee Lake. 

Indian Cave is still a cave but kudzu has covered most of the buildings. The gate to the Cave is rusted and padlocked. 

I don't know if Sur-Joe was pronounced Sure-Joy or Sir-Joy. 

I didn't know the comics character Captain Easy worked at Coleman Motors. 

No smart aleck comment needed.

The Hotel Andrew Johnson was where Hank Williams spent the last night of his life. For years it has been a Knoxville city office building but it will soon be returned to its original glory as a swanky hotel.

It would be 41 years, in 1975, before the Kingsport Times-News published another Vacation Guide. In 1975 The Weekender printed the “Recession-Depression-Inflation-Vacation Guide,” with recommendations for four driving vacations, complete with price tags: Gatlinburg, Myrtle Beach, Opryland and Disney World. (I wrote the 1975 Vacation Guide.)

And now for a little basketball....

Here is the Knoxville News-Sentinel's 1961 All East Tennessee High School basketball team. A.W. Davis and Bobby Hogsett both went to the University of Tennessee on basketball scholarships. Hiram Tipton signed with the University of Virginia but transferred to UT, where he later got a law degree. 

Sportwriters at the time speculated that D-B's Robert Leonard was on second team because of the balance on the Indians. Teammate Bill Sproles was also second team and teammates Toby Hale and Mike Ainslie made honorable mention. 

At the bottom is Tennessee high school basketball's scoring leaders from late January, 1961. Davis, Hogsett and Tipton were 1-2-3.