Welcome back. Glad you're here.

You have driven down Press Street a thousand times. This week is about where the name came from: a book plant that opened in four empty concrete buildings in 1922 and spent the next eighty-four years printing for the whole country. The library archive has kept what's left of it.

In today's post:

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Most of us know the Press as a word. Press Street runs through downtown. ETSU has held classes downtown in what the city calls the Press Building. Somebody saved bricks from the old plant and turned them into a piece of public art. The name sits in Kingsport's vocabulary the same way Eastman does, said all the time and almost never explained.

For eighty-four years, Kingsport made books for the rest of the country.

It started with an announcement. On October 24, 1922, the Kingsport Times ran the headline "Kingsport is to Have Huge Printing Plant." The money behind it was Blair and Company, the New York bankers who had already financed the Clinchfield Railway and the town site itself. John B. Dennis chaired the board. The plant opened in four empty concrete buildings bought from the Grant Leather Company.

The first president, Louis Adams, landed the first contract, and it set the tone. Woolworth wanted classics. Small ones, bound in cloth, mass produced and sold at the five-and-dime. So the first contract the Model City's book plant ever signed was for miniature editions of the great works of literature, headed for Woolworth counters.

By January 1923, newspapers outside the region were paying attention. The Watauga Democrat over in Boone called it one of the great printing plants in the world, built in the middle of the mountains. The paper made a point most of us skip right past. Kingsport had done something nobody had done before, which was put the whole process of making a book in one place. The paper came from the pulp mill across the street, the one that later became Mead. Adams told the reporter that his special machinery could get a book to the public for ten cents, but only if they printed millions of them.

Woolworth was only the start.

In 1925 the company hired Elbridge Woodman Palmer away from the J. F. Tapley Company bindery, and he ran it for twenty-nine years. Palmer understood that a book had to be sold as well as made, so he built a sales department and went after textbooks and encyclopedias. Floor space went from a few hundred square feet to 12.5 acres. The presses ran around the clock. Palmer also helped incorporate Holston Valley Community Hospital and backed the public library, which is why the library's archive holds so much of what's left of the place.

A chemist named Walter F. Smith took over in 1953 and developed new methods for making book cloth and stamping gold on covers. Under Edward J. Triebe, the company built a second, highly automated plant in Hawkins County, twelve miles out. At its height the Press employed 2,500 people. If your grandparents lived in Kingsport in those years, there is a reasonable chance one of them ran a press, worked the bindery, or knew somebody who did.

Then came 1963.

On March 11 of that year, five unions walked out: the bookbinders, the electrotypers, the machinists, the pressmen, and the typographers. They called themselves the Allied Kingsport Press Unions. National union officials and federal mediators both tried to settle it and couldn't. Picket lines went up on the streets of a town that had been planned down to the curb. The strike brought vandalism and violence with it. In 1964, more than five thousand people applied for jobs at the Press. On April 28, 1967, the workforce, new hires and returning employees together, voted the unions out.

It lasted four years. It is recorded as one of the longest strikes in the country, and it happened in the Model City. Plenty of families in this town have both sides of that story somewhere in their history.

The Press kept running. It merged with Arcata National in 1969, and through a chain of sales in the 1990s it ended up owned by Quebecor World, one of the largest book manufacturers anywhere. Its customers were the big publishers. Textbooks and workbooks. Reference sets. Book club selections. Bibles and hymnals. Dictionaries. Even the covers for school yearbooks.

The Hawkins County plant closed in 2001. In April 2006, Quebecor announced it would shut down the Kingsport plant by the fall. A company spokesman cited the changing needs of the publishing industry. There were 425 people working there at the end.

Next Saturday makes it 104 years since that first headline.

If you're at a used book sale this fall, pull something off the table that was printed before 2006 and turn to the copyright page. Look for the name of the town.

Some of those books were made here.

What you leave your kids and grandkids doesn't stay private.

What you had. Who received it. Filed with a court, open to anyone who looks.

But there's one asset that stays off it. No bank, no brokerage, nobody to notify.

And the best part? You can buy it inside your retirement account, tax-deferred and penalty-free.

See what it is:

Read the Full Story

A few things worth getting off your couch for:

Witches Wynd | Friday and Saturday, Oct. 16 and 17, 8 PM | Exchange Place, 4812 Orebank Rd. Storytellers and murder ballads in the dark around the 1800s farm buildings, with guides carrying lanterns. Ages seven and up, $10, and it regularly sells out, so do not wait on it. Details

Packing Up the Past | Friday 7 PM, Saturday 2 and 7 PM, Sunday 2 PM | Kingsport Renaissance Center, 1200 E. Center St. The Kingsport Theatre Guild has four shows this weekend. Tickets are $18, or $15 for students, seniors, military, and kids. Details

Pink Floyd: The Dark Side of the Moon | Friday, Oct. 16, 5:30 and 7 PM | Bays Mountain Park Two showings on the mountain Friday night, $15 a seat. Details

Kingsport Farmers Market | Saturday, Oct. 17, 7 AM | 308 Clinchfield St. Free to walk, and the season runs through November 28. Seven Saturdays left, counting this one. Details

And one to get on the calendar now:

Kingsport Wing Fling | Thursday, Nov. 5, 5:30 to 8 PM | Kingsport Farmers Market Thirteen local spots, from Center Street Grill to Ole Crow Tavern, put out wings under one roof, and you vote for the People's Choice. Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door, with at least one wing from every vendor included. It's indoors, so the weather doesn't matter. Details

Presented by In the Tri. See every Kingsport event this weekend.

One place in this town doing the work.

United Way of Greater Kingsport: United Is The Way This year's campaign has a $2.5 million goal. At the end of September, campaign chair Bob Feathers put the total at $1.36 million, a little past halfway. The money goes to member agencies and programs working on four things: youth opportunity, a healthy community, financial security, and community resiliency. Last year United Way put $1.5 million into that work. The final number gets announced November 19, which leaves about a month to close the gap. Give

204 Fox Path Court, Kingsport, TN | 4 bed, 3 bath

Speaking of somewhere to keep all those books.

This one is a brick house on a hill at the end of a dead-end street, on 1.2 wooded acres, and still a short run to I-81. Covered front porch, established landscaping, and woods on every side.

The main living room has vaulted ceilings, a fireplace, and big windows. Past that there's an oversized second living room, a loft, and a dedicated office. The kitchen has been updated with quartz countertops and opens toward the dining and living areas. New carpet runs through the bedrooms, the office, the family room, and the loft.

Four bedrooms, three full baths. The primary suite has a walk-in closet, a separate whirlpool tub and shower, and room for a king bed with furniture to spare. One of the other bedrooms has its own bath next door, and the two upstairs share a jack-and-jill. Add a laundry and mud room, a two-car garage, and walk-in attic storage. The back deck looks out into the woods, where the deer come through often.

Then there's the full basement, and nobody has finished it yet.

A loft to read in, an office to write in, and a whole floor waiting for shelves. That's a library.

See the full listing for 204 Fox Path Court, then come back and vote.

What do you think they're asking for 204 Fox Path Court

Vote down below

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That's it for this week. Thanks for trusting me with your inbox. Let's tell some stories.

Talk soon,

Ryan