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CHILDRESS BROTHERS FARM
In the late 1920s, Alice Steadman Childress (the mother
of the Childress Brothers, Fred, Frank, and Carl) made
the Dutch Girl quilt from which the
painted square on the barn is copied. The artwork was
done by children (including 5th generation
Childresses) and their art teacher at Sullivan Middle
School, Betty O’Neill. Alice Childress became ill after
her boys were born, and she had her sisters help her
quilt. Alice made heirloom quilts for her sons, placed
their names on them, and stored them in a cedar chest.
The barn was built in the late 1920s or 1930 by the
Childress brothers’ grandfather, John Childress, and his
sons, Tom C. (the Childress brothers’ father), John
Earl, and Tipton Childress. The barn is also a
vanishing American landmark, “an advertising barn”, with
the slogan, Freels Drug Store, still visible.
The barn has been moved “up the creek ¼ mile” from its
original site after what is now Interstate 26 was
constructed. In 1985 a new roof was added, along with
stables, a second floor hay loft, a third floor hay
fork, corn crib, and gear room, and a 14-foot shed on
each side. The roof was replaced again in 2001.
The original homeplace, which burned in 1976, was built
by Peter Easley on a portion of a land grant made to his
father, Stephen Easley, in 1782. The Easleys were among
the earliest settlers in the Horse Creek Valley. The
Childress family acquired the farm in 1894.
Across from the barn, near the Interstate 26/Sullivan
Gardens Parkway interchange, still stands the once
bustling Childress Store, the oldest landmark in the
Horse Creek/Sullivan Gardens area. More than 100 years
old, it was the site of the first post office in the
area. The pigeonholes for mail remain in the building.
Elections were also held in the store. During its
early operation, trips were made to Bristol to purchase
supplies such as kerosene for oil lamps, shoes at
King’s, hardware at C.M. McClung, overalls, oilcloth,
domestic material, and printed material for clothes from
King’s. Groceries were delivered to the store by
Kingsport Grocery. The store bought live produce
including turkeys that were driven from Beech Creek. The
turkeys would be shipped live, or dressed in ice in a
barrel. Eggs were bought from community members and
shipped to New York. Salesmen, or drummers, selling
Home Comfort cookstoves, would stop at the store, stable
their horse at the barn, and board at the homeplace.
Hay mowers built by the Champion Company would be
displayed for sale. Fertilizer hauled in from Nashville
by rail was sold to farmers. Walnut kernels were bought
and taken to Bristol to sell, as were ginseng and other
herbs, and furs (possum, fox, mink, muskrat, coon, etc).
Cattle were driven from the store to railcars in
Kingsport to ship to Baltimore. Also operated at the
store was the oldest Esso gas station in East
Tennessee.
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