About all I can confidently write about this 1.5″ pinback that I picked up at an estate sale in Mt. Carmel (which I actually thought in my very younger days was “Mt. Caramel”, summoning visions of Big Rock Candy Mountain) is that the Kingsport Merchants, formed in 1939, predated the Downtown Kingsport Association.
“50” Minute Cleaners or Fifty Minute Cleaners, 900 Lynn Garden Drive (it’s now the low, red-roofed building next to the log house). As far as I can tell from available sources, it was in business from the late 60s to the very early 70s. It faced heavy competition from One Hour Martinizing with seven locations around town.
These are fake poufs for the left outpocket on a sport coat. You could also, I suppose, stash one in the back pocket of your jeans…
Minute Market had nine locations. Jiffy Markets had seven and a bunch of other grocers were scattered about.
If you go upstairs at River Mountain Antiques on Broad Street and amble as far back as you can go, you’ll see this sign. Why did this business end so quickly in 1919?
That’s because Mr. L. J. Oswald was murdered at this location, then the Nelms Building, in 1919. The alleged culprit was M. D. Stallard. Oswald lived long enough to tell that he had been shot in the back (a later account states that he appeared to have been shot in the side). Stallard’s .32 pistol was found beside Oswald. A property dispute was the apparent cause.
At a trial in Bristol, Stallard claimed self-defense and was declared not guilty on Wednesday, December 10, 1919.
Well, 200 years from 1776 to 1976. Health above all! By using DeWitt nostrums, of course.
Anyway, Holston Pharmacy opened its Boone Street location in November, 1926, in the Bandy-Price Building (now Two Dad’s Restaurant) at Five Points (that’s now considered an old designation. It’s the intersection of Charlemont, Boone, East and West Sullivan and Cherokee Streets). The location was advertised as having a bright, all-glass store front with entrances facing Five Points, Sullivan and Charlemont. The owner/operator was Pharmacist W.D. Westmoreland. Holston Pharmacy then had locations on Broad Street, on the Bristol Highway and in Surgoinsville. I saw that at one time later on, the Pharmacy had a sales event featuring a special price on razor blades for Gillette razors…with a free styptic pencil. And, if you ever shaved with a Gillette razor, you darn sure needed a styptic pencil!
(note: a styptic pencil was a pencil-shaped stick of aluminum salts…it helped clot the blood when you nicked yourself with that terrible razor) (and you would…)
Built around 1926 by Joseph Strauss of Bristol VA, this was home to the Cut Rate Dry Goods store in 1927, Watson’s All Bargain Store in 1929, The Miracle Store in 1929, The Vogue Ladies Apparel in 1931, Strauss’s Women’s Clothing (“Quality and Style at Low Prices”) in 1932, Montgomery Ward in 1935, B. F. Goodrich in 1943 (“A and B Radio Batteries!”), The Debbie Shop in 1947, Moskin’s Credit Clothing in 1952, Home Credit in 1972. There were others. It’s Anchor Antiques now.
If you happen to know of other businesses here, let me know.
Cherokee Ice House was a long-time supplier of ice to homes and businesses in Kingsport. This is, I think (it is in a frame and I’m reluctant to take it apart), a wrapper for a bag of ice. A gallon of water weighs a little over 8 pounds, so this represents a gallon of ice, maybe. I don’t know from weighing ice…
This is what Cherokee Ice House looked like in 1977:
This drawing got me started on representing some of the buildings in and around downtown Kingsport. I did them in pencil, which gained me the comment, from a local art gallery, “Don’t you do anything in color?”.
Yes, I do, but I like doing buildings in black-and-white. Monochrome me.
I did a bit of research on this company. It appears to have been in business as early as 1922 (Kingsport Coal & Ice – they also made ice cream – began in 1917 on Main Street).
It was also known as “Cherokee Ice Plant, Old Kingsport”. Ice in the 1940’s was 60 cents per 100 pounds, 50 cents for commercial interests. There was a huge ice shortage in July of 1946. Ice had to be shipped in from as far away as Kentucky. Scott Roller owned Cherokee Ice in that year.
As work progresses on the widening of Memorial Boulevard, the original home of Honest John’s gift shop and restaurant is going down. In 1954, “Honest John” Barker created “Kaw-Liga”, a 25-foot concrete depiction of a rather surprised looking “indian” in front of this structure. There was a speaker in the statue with which Barker would lure tourists in to shop his offerings. By 1960, the indian had been hauled up to the newly-created Stone Drive/11W/Robert E. Lee Highway where Barker continued the business until 1970 or so.
Other businesses occupied this building off and on. The only one I recall was Abe’s Pies, which supplied quite decent pies to restaurants in the city.
Fifty hand-picked married men with at least one child Tennessee Eastman employees worked feverishly to develop the world’s most powerful explosive – RDX. The result was the large-scale production at Holston Defense (see The Secret History of RDX Colin F. Baxter, University Press of Kentucky 2018)
There is also a detailed history of this plant and the other plant at Horse Creek
:
This is on Long Island.
Top left: Wolf Clan Central: Cherokee Seal Top right: Blue Clan
Left: Deer Clan
The central plaque:
(an arrow indicating north then a silhouette of Long Island)
Long Island of the Holston
Sacred Cherokee Ground
Relinquished by Treaty on Jan. 7, 1806.
3.6 acres returned to the Eastern
Band of Cherokee Indians by the
City of Kingsport on July 16, 1976
Richard Bevington. John A. Crowe
Mayor Principal Chief
Central Right: Bird Clan
Lower right: Paint Clan Central: Wild Potato Clan Right: Long Hair Clan
Bob Lawrence's Kingsport 