Not only did someone trim this pre-WWI lithographed postcard down with scissors, but they also glued it (clutching of pearls, here) into an album. It remains a nice looking card, though.
Tag Archives: johnson city tn
VA Administration Center
Much old, great tan. This 1950 post card views the VA Center from the south, taken on an extremely tall tripod, or possibly from an airplane, whatever. The Curt Teich date code is just under the words “Place Stamp Here”.
Zimmerman & Torbett News Agency. I don’t find any informational citations on the web about this business. I seem to remember that it was a news stand.
You can get a good view of this area as it is now on Google Earth.
Soldiers’ Home, Johnson City
This was probably printed in the early 1900s – 1907 – 1910 or so. “Commercialchrome” shows it was printed by Curt Teich in Chicago using their 4-color, halftone, lithographic process.
This vendor wrote their booth number and the price in ink. Annoys the hell out of me, but post cards are hard for vendors to control with too many people either altering the price or just slipping them into their pockets. It’s a hard-knock life, no?
Wilbur Dam, Twice
On the back: PLANT OF WATAUGA POWER ON WATAUGA RIVER NEAR JOHNSON CITY WHICH FURNISHES ELECTRICAL CURRENT FOR INDUSTRIAL, COMMERCIAL AND DOMESTIC PURPOSES TO THIS CITY, THE CITY OF BRISTOL AND SEVERAL SMALLER TOWNS.
This is Wilbur Dam. The dam, fully completed and on line in 1912, actually began generating electricity on a test basis to Elizabethton on December 25, 1911, apparently making it the earliest major hydro-electric generating facility in Tennessee. According to Jackie and Dawn Trivette Peters in Images of America – Carter County (page 101), it was named for James Wilbur, a sawmill operator “in the community”. Thanks to Joe Penza, Archivist at the Elizabethton – Carter County Public Library, I found out the whole story and it hinges more on the importance of a railroad name than that of a logging operator. Joe forwarded documents to me that noted the Virginia and Southwestern Railroad Company had established a flag station and side track for the logging operation on Big Laurel Branch. The railroad named it “Wilbur Station”. So, the dam, officially known as “Horseshoe Bend Dam”, took on the name “Wilbur Dam”. When TVA bought the dam in 1945, the name stuck.
Dan Crowe, in his book The Horseshoe People (1976/self-published), quotes an Aunt Cass Carden as saying during the dedication of the dam ceremony, “Youngins, they’re a-burnin’ a hairpin in a bottle.” I think she was referring to a light bulb.
Curt Teich Printing Company of Chicago began producing the (above) C.T. American Art Colored cards in 1915, using an offset printing process. Later, in the early 1930s, using new European inks and linen-effect embossing, they brightened the cards up tremendously. This Asheville Post Card Company card, from the 1970s, shows how the process, along with more careful and artistic photo editing of the original black-and-white photograph, produced a much more pleasing picture. The colors and other details were added at the facility and printed using a five-plate process:
That suspension bridge in front of the dam was for a time the only access to the powerhouse.
First Methodist Church, Johnson City TN
Other than the original photos being taken from different viewpoints (or using different lenses), there are four differences between these two cards:
The lower one, obviously, is the earlier. I think it may have been taken pre-WWII. The upper one, probably late 40s.
The differences I see: First, the plate numbers are different (I can only date Asheville Post Card Company cards by inference. I found another card in the E-7417 range that had a 1948 post mark). Second, the shrubbery. Third, the sign on the corner in front of the church. Fourth, the early one is titled merely “JC-71 Methodist Church, Johnson City, Tenn.” and the later one is “JC-75 First Methodist Church, Johnson City, Tenn.”
Pet Dairy Products Co. Token
I found a few of these tokens at a local flea market. Each token is 16.5 mm in diameter. They appear in a token catalog as originating in Johnson City TN, where Pet Dairy has had a milk processing facility since 1929. I think they’re pre-WWII. The token catalog notes that there was a 25 cent and a 5 cent version, too. The 5 cent token is posted here.
Uncle Bob's Pix 