Monday, October 6, 2014

The Model City: A Fine Little Capitalist Utopia

J. Fred Johnson (l) and John B. Dennis (r)
The founders and city fathers of modern Kingsport
October 6, 2014

Dear Constant Readers,

This is the fifth installment in an ongoing series of posts from which I hope will form the first draft of a book.  The working title for this book is, "Confessions of a Second Grade Failure."  It is a coming-of-age memoir about growing up in Kingsport, Tennessee during the 1960s and early 1970s.

And don't forget - if you subscribe to receive my blog posts by email before October 15, you will automatically be registered in a contest to win a new Kindle reader from Amazon.  For more details about the contest and how to subscribe, please read this post.

Cheers,

Stephen

P.S. Even though I do proofread my work before publishing on this blog, occasionally a grammatical error or misspelling will elude my notice.  I do have a more objective proofreader, my wife, Lynn, but she usually proofs it after it has gone out to you, the reader.  When I finish a blog, I transfer what I have written into chapters kept in a text document.  These blog posts help shape what I will soon submit to the literary agent.  So, if you find grammatical errors or misspellings, feel free to share them with me so that I may correct them.  Right now I am writing to generate material and content for the book, so I am somewhat less attentive to the polishing process that goes into finished material.  Thanks for your understanding and your participation.

_______________

Confessions of a Second Grade Failure

The Model City: A Fine Little Capitalist Utopia

In the early 1900s, the first dreamer of a modern Kingsport arrived. His name was George L. Carter.
George L. Carter
By birth, Carter was a local, born in Hillsville, Virginia, just over 120 miles from Kingsport. But in terms of his career, he was a coal and railroad magnate, and a force to be reckoned with. By 1902, Carter owned over 500,000 acres of land in southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee. He also purchased numerous coal, iron ore and other precious metal mines in Appalachia. There was a big problem, however - how to get the coal and other minerals out of this area to larger American markets. Thus a project was born - Carter intended to build a railroad that could carry his coal to market.

Since the Civil War, many had seen the need to link the railroad which ran along the eastern seaboard with the lines of the midwest. Carter envisioned building a segment of railroad which would connect the two, enabling transportation by rail from Charleston, South Carolina all the way to Chicago, Illinois. This new railroad line would eventually be named the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railroad - or, as it was later known, the Clinchfield.
To complete this vision, Carter would have to build this line from Elkhorn City, Kentucky to Spartanburg, South Carolina - over 300 miles of some of the most difficult and challenging terrain ever to be developed. Building his railroad was not inexpensive. He needed financial backing. The first to back Carter was the New York capitalist and financier, Thomas Fortune Ryan, who invested in excess of $30 million in the project. In 1905, Carter also sought and received additional financial investment from another New York banking and finance firm, Blair and Company. One of their partners was a man by the name of John B. Dennis. Dennis would play an essential role in the development of Kingsport.
Dennis, a native of Maine, is said to have had a nose for profit. He had long been interested in the mineral deposits of southwestern Virginia. He also took notice of how rich this area was in other natural resources - such as vast tracts of virgin timber and water resources as well. Investing in this project was his way into the area. From the start, Dennis personally committed himself and his own resources into the new railway.

In 1906, George Carter hired an engineer to help him design a new town next to his railroad. The plan included a broad avenue extending outward from the new railroad station several blocks to a semi-circle from which several streets would radiate. This new town would be located on the 9,000 acres of land Carter owned in present-day Kingsport, Sullivan County and Hawkins County.

Unfortunately, Carter was not able to bring his vision of the railroad or the new town to fruition. The development of the railroad proved too costly to see it through. Seriously in debt, Carter decided to sell his investment to Blair and Company. John B. Dennis became Blair and Company’s point person on the project. They would continue to build the railroad and underwrite it with their own financial resources.

George Carter had a brother-in-law by the name of J. Fred Johnson, who also served as Dennis’
The Clinchfield Railroad Line
chief 
manager. Johnson was also from Hillsville, Virginia, and therefore was an Appalachian native. When Blair and Company bought out Carter, Johnson continued to work for Dennis. Eventually, he would take over the management of building the new railroad for Dennis. Johnson was a product of the Protestant work ethic, but he was also influenced by both Progressivism of the era and the New South philosophy which placed strong emphasis on Southern economic development, industrialization and diversification. Johnson also believed in the importance of expertise. So he brought in engineers from all around the country to solve the engineering dilemma of the mountainous area through which the railroad would have to pass. $100 million and 50 train tunnels later, the railroad was built! It was one of the costliest engineering projects in the United States at that time.


It’s important to acknowledge that if there had been no Clinchfield Railroad, there would have been no modern Kingsport, Tennessee. It made its way to present-day Kingsport in 1909. Not too long after, Dennis, while conferring with Johnson, decided that the new railroad needed an industrial hub. At that moment, they were standing in a muddy cowpasture in what is now downtown Kingsport. It would take another five years, but this renewed dream of a new city began to come to pass. On December 31, 1915, Dennis invited J. Fred Johnson to become his partner and help him build the new Kingsport.

Margaret Ripley Wolfe, in her excellent book on the history of Kingsport, entitled, Kingsport: A Planned American City, tells the story about how after Dennis offered Johnson the job of building Kingsport, he reportedly told his wife that “they could either be millionaires or build a town.” Johnson chose to build a town - and in the process he still did pretty well for himself financially.

From the very beginning, these two founders - Dennis and Johnson - decided that Kingsport would not
Downtown Kingsport
Courtesy The Archives of the City of Kingsport
be just another mill village, coal camp, or company town. Rather, they envisioned an industrial city that was unlike any other in the country. It was to be a “model city” - economically diverse, professionally planned, and privately financed. A new type of city for a new century!

Dennis and Johnson formed an organization called The Kingsport Improvement Association. The newly formed Association, financially underwritten by Dennis and led by Johnson, bought land from Blair and Company, which included 6,355 acres which had originally belonged to Carter. This land would form the initial area for building Kingsport.

Once again, the experts were brought in - in this case, to help build a new city. The first of these experts was Dr. John Nolan, a nationally known city planner and engineer from Cambridge, Massachusetts. The founders’ vision was of a city of 50,000 residents with enough industries and businesses to support this population. Carter’s earlier design found itself incorporated into the Nolan plan. Nolan’s design was essentially three-fold. He laid out the city with the residential areas in the high elevations of the area. Industrial development was located near the railroad and the Holston River. The business district lay in the level area between the two. Like Carter’s original design,
Church Circle
Courtesy The Archives of the City of Kingsport
downtown was laid out in a grid style with a large broad avenue for the business district which began at the train station and ran for several blocks ending in a semi-circle with streets radiating outward. One difference from Carter’s plan was that in this circle four churches were built, reflecting the importance of religion in the lives of the founders and also the later industrialists who would locate there.

With Nolan working on the design of the city, Dennis and Johnson turned their attention to the style of government which would lead the new city. With guidance and input from experts in municipal government at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, they chose a city manager form of government, with a Board of Mayor and Aldermen. Kingsport was the first city in Tennessee to adopt this type of governance.

For the development of the educational system, they turned to experts at Columbia University. And on it went in the city’s development - experts for the design of both private homes and public buildings; experts for public health, sanitation and disease-prevention; experts for landscape and gardening, etc. These experts were hired to give input and knowledge, but ultimately the final decisions were left in the hands of Dennis and Johnson.

On March 2, 1917, the charter for the new city of Kingsport, which had already been passed by the legislature, received it’s final approval from Tennessee Governor Tom Rye. That same year, Kingsport received it first national recognition when it was featured in the Saturday Evening Post, which heralded it as the “model small American city.”

With the foundations of the new city established, J. Fred Johnson went to work as the city’s principal
The Kingsport Press
Courtesy The Archives of the City of Kingsport
promoter. He has often been called Kingsport’s “one-man Chamber of Commerce.” With Dennis’ 
support, Johnson began to recruit businesses and industries to Kingsport which would compliment one another and not compete. George Eastman of New York was convinced to open a new chemical plant there - Tennessee Eastman, which at one time would be Tennessee’s largest employer. George Mead from Ohio agreed to open a new pulp mill and paper plant. Blair and Associates backed a new publishing company and installed John B. Dennis as board chair. The Kingsport Press would become the largest book publisher in the world at its height.

While profits lured the financiers and corporations, it was the dream of becoming part of the middle class that brought most of the people to Kingsport. From nearby counties, the Appalachian region as a whole and also people from around the country came to Kingsport in hopes of one day owning their own home, having a steady paycheck, giving their children a good education, of having a life that was substantially better than the one their parents lived.

This was certainly the dream of my great-grandfather, E. F. Taylor. In the 1920s, he sold the family farm in Speer’s Ferry, Scott County, Virginia to my great-uncle, Emmett Rhodes. With the money from the farm, he purchased dozens of lots and land parcels from The Kingsport Improvement Association, upon which he built new homes to sell. Great-grandpa Taylor did very well for himself, too. 

J. Fred Johnson died in 1944. John B. Dennis died in 1947. The generation of the dreamers and founders had passed. But the spirit which made Kingsport a reality - its sense of public-mindedness and strong sense of community, the feeling that this small city was created for a purpose and that it had a destiny to fulfill - lives on.

6 comments:

  1. Great photo of Church Circle. I also like your summary of the founding of the city. Very interesting. - Carol H.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Phenomenal article! This should be taught in all history classes in Kpt.
    T. Snapp

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi, Steve,

    Just couldn't resist -- Looked up Mr. George Lafayette Carter, and lo and behold, he's a direct descendent of Captain Thomas Carter and Kathrine Dale. Another cousin for both of us!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Linda, indeed he is - albeit a very distant one for me. I didn't mention that I was related to him because of all my other relatives who show up in the book! ;)

      Delete