A vintage boarding house (a.k.a. a lodging house or rooming house) referred to a home where the owners rented one or more of their rooms to paying customers. Room and board typically meant lodging and food for the guests. Initially, boarders shared washing and toilet facilities, but later each room normally had its own amenities. Depending on arrangements made with the landlord, duration of stay at a facility varied from a few days to several weeks to a year or more.

Wednesday, November 19, 1924 was a long-awaited day for Johnson Citians because the Great Houdini, known as “the greatest living ‘mystifier’ on earth,” was performing that evening on the stage of the DeLuxe (later renamed Tennessee) Theatre.

An advertisement from a July 1927 Johnson City Staff-News told of the “Famous Paul English Players,” known as “The Show with a Million Friends,” coming to the city, performing in “the finest equipped tent theatre in America. 

WJSO-AM stories continue to drift into my mailbox. Don Sluder, who became employed at the station on December 1, 1958, within two months of the station’s sign-on, said he enjoyed the two recent Press articles from Don Dale and Ray Stockard on the subject. Don indicated that there was so much that could be said about WJSO that helped cause a revolution in the way a radio station was formatted. 

Today’s column is an extension of my April 30 WJSO feature story that Don Dale supplied. He also interviewed Ray Stockard and forwarded to me added facts about the once popular station. 

Don Dale has a stack of memories from his working days at WJSO-AM where he once worked as program director:

Tuesday, September 14, 1915 was an exciting day for circus lovers in Johnson City. At 6:00 a.m., as the sun slowly began to disperse the darkness in the morning sky, the first array of circus trains began to appear in the city.

In 1958, the late Dorothy Hamill, Johnson City Press-Chronicle writer, interviewed the executives of Dale and Carroll Productions, a local animated cartoon production enterprise.

In September 1922, exciting news went out in the Johnson City Daily News that the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus was coming to Johnson City’s circus ground, the big rectangular lot located between E. Main and E. Market streets where the city municipal building is now located. Seventeen tents of various sizes were erected for the “amusement of the public and convenience of the employees.”

Tommy Church, a Johnson City resident, recalled when Homer Harris, a local cowboy star, performed at his school: