June 1992

Old Tile-Making Structure at the Sand Spur

This is an interesting structure. It's at the end of the old Sand Spur, north of the highway between Johnson City and Elizabethton. Behind this building is the Watauga River and just off to the left is Smalling Bridge, named for the Smallings who live right down the road and have owned all this property since the railroad came in here to dig sand deposited by the river. You can still drive on the old Sand Spur right-of-way just off the highway back down towards Elizabethton. Right off the highway the river and the right-of-way goes through a high-cliff area and the scenery with the river on one side and the rock wall on the other is remarkable.

Anyway, this building was a manufacturing plant for...well...look at the roof and you can tell. They made these concrete shingles. Musta weighed a ton, but they sure would last a long time. It's not used for manufacturing any more, just storage I believe. I'm not sure how long this has been here, but it wasn't here when the Sand Spur (Watauga River Sand Company) was operating. The structure is shaped like a "T" with a wing sticking out on the other side. Now to the funny part. There always needs to be a funny part. All the walls of this building are white lap siding. Except the wall where my car is parked which is concete block. "Why?" you ask. Well, this building is in a very sharp corner of the road and out away from town and the police, so people tend to drive pretty fast. The owners got tired of repairing car damage to the wood wall next to the road, so they finally rebuilt it out of concrete block. I don't know how long the block wall has been up, but it looks pretty fresh to me.