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75 Cents
April 27, 2016
Some sk text goes daily
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100th Year, Number 118
The Times-News at 100 SUNDAY
October 4, 2015
75 Cents
From an uncertain start in a new town, newspaper celebrating its centennial By VINCE STATEN vincestaten@timesnews.net
KINGSPO RT — It’s come full circle. When the Kingsport Times was founded 100 years ago, the first issues were printed in Johnson City. Today the Johnson City paper is printed in Kingsport. Those first issues of the Times were printed in Johnson City for a simple reason: that’s where founder and publisher Cy Lyle lived and where he also published the Johnson City Comet, a weekly that had been in business since 1884. He saw opportunity in the booming little town to the north and on April 28, 1916, he and his editor R.D. “Bob” Kinkead shipped 500 copies of the first issue of The Kingsport Times to Kingsport on the CC&O Railroad. O n the 20th anniversary of the newspaper, Kinkead recalled, “Streets were only paths that were almost impassible in rainy weather. Paved streets were then unheard of and had never been considered here.” No copy of that first issue survives. In fact, the first surviving copy is issue
■ Kingsport Times-News staff photo. Page 1B. ■ Looking back at a century of news. Sections E, F, G, H, I, J.
3, May 11, 1916, and it is in poor condition. But you can read most of the content. It was a mix of national stories from The Associated Press with a few local stories filling in. There was an AP dispatch from Texas where U.S. Cavalry troops were chasing the bandit Pancho Villa and his gang. A story out of Washington chronicled President Woodrow Wilson’s negotiations with Germany over submarine warfare. At the top of the front page was “Kingsport and its Development,” a transcription of an address by “George Bradley, High School Boy” to the school’s Bachmonian Literary Society. “I predict that Kingsport shall become a place of civic beauty, a city of clean streets, shady avenues, rose terraces and window box gardens. Let us make Kingsport a city of commercial importance, second to none but no less a home of culture in its broadest sense.”
Contributed photo
Above, the Kingsport Times-News building is shown on Market Street in this photo from 1946. In November 1916, the newspaper office was moved from Main Street to a small wood frame building in what is now the 200 block of East Market Street. When the newspaper expanded in 1957, it took up most of the block. In 1972, the Times-News moved from its longtime home to its current location on Lynn Garden Drive, left.
See 100 YEARS, PAGE 3A
Matthew Carroll — mcarroll@timesnews.net
Road to recovery: Tennessee making strides against prescription abuse By NICK SHEPHERD nshepherd@timesnews.net
Prescription drug abuse has become so pervasive in the state it has been labeled an epidemic. But Tennessee has been taking meaningful steps to reverse the trend and is starting to see tangible results. A major step taken in the last week was the passage of a bill in
the Tennessee Senate which, if signed by Gov. Bill Haslam, would force pain management clinics to obtain a license and be inspected by the Department of Health. “This legislation will professionalize the industry and allow patients to have more faith in the providers who treat them,” said bill sponsor Sen. Randy McNally, R-O ak Ridge, in a press release.
“We continue to rank among the worst in the nation in prescription opiate abuse and deaths despite significant efforts made by the General Assembly over the last several years to curb it.” Senate Bill 1466 says pain management clinics must obtain a license to operate by July 1, 2017. Currently the clinics are only required to register with the Health Department.
If any clinics do not obtain a license, they will face a class A misdemeanor offense for each day of operation. The bill also says pain management clinics must be inspected before being licensed and at least once every two years after that. The Department of Health can also conduct unannounced inspections at any time and could review business and
medical records whenever there is a reasonable suspicion a clinic is operating without a license. At any time, if the commissioner of health believes a clinic is detrimental to the health, safety or welfare of patients, operations for new or existing patients can be suspended until review at a prompt hearing. See RECOVERY, PAGE 3A
Signal lights In the middle of the Great Depression, entrepreneurial spirit lived in Kingsport By NICK SHEPHERD nshepherd@timesnews.net
Contributed photo
This contributed photo shows an Arroway traffic signal hanging in Kingsport in the 1950s. Arroway traffic signals were made in Kingsport for a brief time in the 1930s. At right is an Arroway traffic signal that was purchased by the city and fully restored.
Index Business..............7A Classified......1D-8D Comics..................7B Crossword...........3D Dear Abby...........2A Deaths...........2B-3B Editorial..............6A
Food.......................8C F.Y.I......................7A Jumble.................3D Metro..............1B-8B Scoreboard..........2C Sudoku.................3D Television...........2A
Cloudy with a 50% chance of showers/storms; high 79, low 61.
KINGSPO RT — As the Dust Bowl raged in the Midwest and a few days after Babe Ruth retired from baseball, a group from Northeast Tennessee opened a new manufacturing plant. This plant took advantage of America’s burgeoning love affair with cars and set out to change the way people navigated traf-
See SIGNAL, PAGE 2A
Nick Shepherd — nshepherd@timesnews.net
Casting call
NFL draft
The Liberty Celebration is sending out a call for singers and musicians, volunteers who wish to be a part of Kingsport’s biennial performance. Page 1B.
This year’s NFL draft frontrunners are clear. The only drama left: Who will go to the Rams with the No. 1 overall pick? Pages 3C-4C.
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fic by producing newly patented traffic lights. The Arroway Traffic Signal Corp. announced plans in June 1935 to open a new production plant in Kingsport. The lights were invented by R.O . Ferguson, who hailed from Bristol. He quickly sold the rights to Arroway and was subsequently named vice president of the new corporation.
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