The late Sue Eckstein once shared with me an undated newspaper clipping from a scrapbook that belonged to her father, Paul Carr. It documents several unrelated stories of early Johnson City, written by former Johnson City Press-Chronicle writer, Fred Hoss.

Ben Scharfstein recently provided me with a précis of his family’s business that once operated in East Tennessee before eventually being acquired by another company.

Today is Saturday, August 17, 1929 and we need to do some grocery shopping. Our first order of business is to examine the Johnson City Chronicle to see if there are any specials being advertised in the local grocery stores.

A vintage jukebox is a coin-operated phonograph, typically in a beautiful colorfully illuminated cabinet, having an assortment of records that are selected from numbered push buttons.

Many area residents fondly recall shopping at Dosser’s Department Store that once stood at 228-230 E. Main Street, sandwiched between Sterchi Brothers on the west, Beckner’s Jewelers on the east.

Johnson City once boasted of having two prominent and competing foundries. The Johnson City Foundry and Machine Works, Inc. (1883-1987) operated at 920 W. Walnut Street, the Inter-State Foundry and Machine Company (1924-early 1980s) at 343 Love Street. Ironically, the same two founders started both businesses.

I have fond memories of growing up on Johnson Avenue in a house directly behind the Henry Johnson School playground. When we moved there in 1950, my dad, eager to exercise his green thumb, turned our double lot into a mass of thick foliage with a variety of trees (including fruit), bushes, plants, vines, flowers and a vegetable garden.

In about 1958, this 16-year old young man had a 90-customer Johnson City Press-Chronicle newspaper route that encompassed five North Johnson City neighborhoods – Althea, Lake, Crocus, Lakeview and the adjoining section of Oakland.

A distinguishing vestige of the era between 1908 and 1927 is the image of a black Model T Ford slowly chugging along a narrow city potholed dusty road, honking its distinctive “ahooga, ahooga” sounding horn.

S&H Green Stamps were once known as “America’s Most Valuable Stamps,” at one time printing three times as many as the U.S. Post Office. Printed by the Sperry and Hutchinson Company, they had been around since 1896 but did not reach their zenith until the 1950s.