The Teen Center!

 What to do with our teenagers...

Build them a Teen Center!

Before 1940 the Kingsport Times had published the word “teenager” exactly once: in a 1939 story about a dress pattern with broad shoulders and a flared skirt that was “very becoming for thin teen-agers.”

The word teenager didn’t really hit the language until late in the war when Kingsport adults began worrying about what their high school age children would do after school and, especially, after dark.

Talk of a “teen center” began in earnest in 1944 when the Kingsport Business and Professional Women’s Club offered to sponsor such an endeavor.

And thus the above 1987 Out of the Attic photo, which had originally been published in the Kingsport Times in 1945 with the caption “THESE ARE THE ELBOW GREASE BOYS.” The boys in the picture had, the caption told us, done “most of the hard work of cleaning, painting, hammering and general tinkering to get Indian Lodge into shape for fellow students and friends to enjoy.”

Indian Lodge was the name of the first local teen center.

The caption continued, “Their labors were recognized on opening night, when the entire group posed for this picture. Left to right: Paul King, Harlan Harrison, Ralph Mellons, Bert Shanks, Roy Williams, Kenneth Hauk, Buster Brown, J. L. Palmer and Dick Loveless.”

When the photo ran in Out of the Attic 42 years later, it was submitted by Ken “Fat” Hawk, who told the Out of the Attic editor, “Back in the 40s the Business and Professional Women’s Club sponsored the Indian Lodge for teens age 16 to 21.” (That was expanding the definition of teenager past 19 to 20 and 21.)

Hawk told the editor, “It was located in a building next to what is now WKIN radio on Market Street. The building belonged to Holston Ordnance Defense which used it for storage. They gave the room to the club provided the teens keep it up. All the businesses chipped in and donated furniture, a ping pong table, a pool table, a grill and a hot dog machine. We’d hire bands from Knoxville and around and had dances every Saturday night. Membership was about $5 and was open to teens from Dobyns-Bennett, Church Hill, Blountville and Sullivan High Schools. The club eventually moved into space in the Civic Auditorium.”

Not quite that simple.

There’s a reason most of us have never heard of Indian Lodge. That’s because Indian Lodge lasted less than a year.

The Lodge opened to much fanfare on Saturday April 28, 1945 with a dance featuring music by Buddy Marsh and His Orchestra.

The gloriously-named Kingsport Times reporter Florine Cooter wrote about the opening in the next day’s paper:

“The old Trailer Camp Recreation Building vibrated anew Saturday night as more than 500 teen-agers turned out to make the opening of Kingsport's Indian Lodge what sponsors and members alike termed ‘A splendid success.’

“The floor was filled with jitterbugs as well as more conservative dancers the entire evening. Robert Pyle (of the Tennessee Eastman Recreation Center) rendered several vocal selections and the ever-popular juke-box furnished current tunes until arrival of the orchestra about 9 p.m.”

Despite that smashing beginning and a strong summer, by fall attendance was down to 94 a day. The Indian Lodge was no longer a hit with teenagers.

In December the building was sold to Clinchfield Supply, owned by Bobby Peters. On July 28, 1946 the local women’s club was running one of those “divorce” classified ads: “The Business and Professional Women’s Club of Kingsport will not be responsible for any debts made by the Indian Lodge or any member of the Lodge.”

Indian Lodge was dissolved.

And that’s why you probably never heard of Indian Lodge. It was open for a grand total of seven months.

For my generation “Teen Center” meant that back room at the Civic Auditorium.

But that was actually Kingsport’s third attempt at a Teen Center.

The folks involved in Indian Lodge didn’t give up easily. A week after the “divorce ad” Indian Lodge president Jack Huntoon was standing in front of the weekly Jaycees meeting asking the group’s support in reviving what the newspaper called the “teen tavern.”

And the Jaycees agreed.

It took two years and $40,000 but on Saturday November 13, 1948 a new teen center, actually called “Teen Center,” opened in a brand-new building erected specifically as a teen center. The Jaycee had partnered with the Kiwanis Club, which had donated proceeds from the 1948 Kiwanis Kapers, to buy the land at 134 Cumberland St. If that address sounds familiar, keep reading.

The newspaper covered this grand opening, too. “Crowds of old and young were on hand Saturday night for the opening of Teen Center, the Junior Chamber of Commerce’s $40,000 gift to Kingsport's younger generation. The older people were mostly there early in the evening to view the building and attend the dedication ceremonies. The teen-agers attended the Center's first party, a Sadie Hawkins Day dance with music by Sammie DeVault's orchestra from Bristol. The dedication was broadcast over WKPT, and later in the evening the radio station carried a 15-minute program of the dance music.”

The new Teen Center even had a director, Miss Lucille Blankenbecler, younger sister of famous Kingsport High football and basketball star Emary Blankenbecler.

She seemed to have the requisite background to make this new Teen Center a success: “a former member of the Tennessee Eastman Corporation recreation staff, where she directed a local center in the Eastman plant and organized specialized recreation clubs. She assisted in organizing the recreation program in the wartime TEC plant at Oak Ridge.”

This Teen Center didn’t last quite two years. By October 1950 the building was being rented to the new Boys’ Club. That’s why the address sounds familiar – it would become famous as the Boys’ Club.

Letters to the editor blamed this teen center’s demise on two factors:

“The Teen Center was all right, until the ten and twelve-year-olds started coming there.”

“An unruly element.” In other words, fights.

Almost as soon as this Teen Center went under, local teens were lobbying for – yes – a teen center.

Every year on Student Government Day, when teens played mayor and other city officials, a resolution was passed in favor of a – yes – new teen center.

Recreation director Bill Jordan got the ball rolling again in December 1956, telling city officials that Kingsport had adequate recreation facilities for boys but almost nothing for girls. “The idea is for a place where young people could go on dates. At present their only choice is a movie.”

On July 7, 1957 Mayor Milton DeVault lead a charge of teenagers into the converted game room at the Civic Auditorium, rechristened the Teen Center and placed under the firm hand of advisor Mrs. Don Whited.

And that was the situation when I turned a teen. I even took ballroom dancing there when I was in junior high.

The Civic Auditorium Teen Center from the 1965 D-B yearbook.

If you are still reading, you’re probably wondering how this story ends.

Not well.

In 1975 the Civic Auditorium Teen Center closed. The city said it needed the space for storage. That was the official story. The letters to the editor had another cause: drugs in the parking lot.

But Kingsport teens couldn’t stand the idea of not having a dedicated teen center.  (Although I should note that Ft. Henry Mall opened in March 1976 and was immediately a teen hangout.)

It took them a while but they managed to get yet another teen center, Rascal’s, which opened Feb. 13, 1987 – more than a decade after the Civic Auditorium Teen Center closed. Rascal’s was located across the street from the old Boys’ Club which was actually the original “Teen Center.”

Rascal’s celebrated its 25^th anniversary in 2012, the longest lasting of all Kingsport’s teen centers.

It too is gone now.

I haven’t seen any letters to the editor lately about a new, new teen center. I don’t expect to.