John Shearer: Saying Goodbye To First Tennessee Name — And To Aspects Of McDonald’s, Krystal

  • Saturday, November 9, 2019
  • John Shearer
While a number of people I know have over the years changed banks or financial institutions several times for a variety of reasons, I have actually used the same bank my entire life.

I know that might not be technically true due to the fact that banks have gone through mergers and acquisitions as much as any business — at least over the last 30 years  — but I never changed as my bank changed names.

It all started when I was a child, and my father, Dr.
Wayne Shearer, opened an account for me at Hamilton National Bank. There was at least a partial reason for this. Before my grandfather, C.C. Shearer, moved to Cordele, Ga., in the late 1920s, he worked at the old Hamilton National Bank branch in the pretty, still-standing building at the x-shaped intersection of Glass Street and North Chamberlain Avenue in East Chattanooga.

My account continued to remain in the same financial institution after Hamilton Bank was taken over by First Tennessee Bank of Memphis following Hamilton’s insolvency declaration in 1976. 

And as I grew older, I kept my account there, including when I lived for two years in the Cleveland, Tn., area and in Knoxville for 12 years. They had First Tennessee banks there, and it was still convenient.

I also took joy in the First Tennessee name and the state pride it represented. OK, so I could not use a First Tennessee teller in Alabama or Atlanta, but I could pull out my debit card to pay for my meal and have a bank name on it that people in those states did not have. 

But now — after more than 40 years — the name has been changed to First Horizon Bank, and I am not overly happy. But I guess I will survive. 

I went and looked at the reason, and it must be because First Tennessee acquired Capital Bank in 2017, and Capital had branches in other states. Other mergers/acquisitions have also come since then.

Before I ponder what is on the horizon with First Horizon, I started wondering what had caused Hamilton National Bank’s problems in the 1970s. I went and looked at some old newspaper articles in the clipping files at the downtown Chattanooga Public Library, and it said the troubles started in the early-to-mid 1970s. That is when the bank and its affiliated departments/subsidiaries decided to invest heavily and aggressively in real estate development through loans in places like Georgia.

The American economy was struggling at that point, and some of these firms that had borrowed money did not develop the properties and, as a result, could not pay off their loans.

That created serious bank balance issues with Hamilton National Bank, and after several months of an uncertain future, the institution was declared insolvent by a comptroller in February 1976. The bank was immediately taken over by First Tennessee, which had been the First National Bank of Memphis for decades and was one of three banks that had filed sealed bids with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) to save the Chattanooga bank.

I understand the Hamilton Bank failure was one of the largest in the United States up until that time.

* * * * *

Besides a name change, I am also dealing with a change in appearance of a fast-food restaurant. I drive by the McDonald’s on Hixson Pike across from DuPont Elementary regularly, and noticed that in recent days it has removed its familiar old overhanging red roof. 

I am quite aware that fast-food/quick-service restaurants are always coming up with new looks for their buildings — sometimes by completely rebuilding — in an effort to appear current and trendy. But the old overhanging roof reminded me of my younger years eating at that particular McDonald’s, so I am a little sad.

I have memories of stopping there countless times in elementary school and particularly after playing in a Baylor football game in the 1970s. There is nothing like enjoying some McDonald’s after an exhaustive athletic event when you are young and not worrying the least about counting calories.

Plenty of other memories of stopping at the Hixson McDonald’s also exist, including seeing the street-level sign in the front that actually mentioned how many millions of burgers had been sold at that point. I have even gone in there in recent months to work on newspaper stories with my laptop and have bought a small Coke to sip on — while dreaming of being able as a late-middle-aged adult to quickly down a Big Mac and fries without guilt as I once did.

Although I know this McDonald’s has been remodeled and enlarged multiple times over the years, I will miss the overhanging red roof, as it was a reminder of when I was younger and had the world at my fingertips.

Actually, what I still miss the most from McDonald’s is its original fried and hot apple pies like they had in the 1970s. I can still taste them in my mind after several decades!

I went to the library to find some information on the Hixson McDonald’s and learned it opened almost exactly 50 years ago. With the help of the library staff, an old newspaper ad was found from when it celebrated its grand opening on Oct. 17-18, 1969, after a ribbon-cutting on Oct. 14 — its first day of operation — with Miss Chattanooga, Beverly Hartshorn, in attendance.

On Saturday, Oct. 18, a person described as “The McDonald Clown” was to be on hand to meet boys and girls. Of course, somewhere along the line this fellow became Ronald McDonald. 

Visitors could also register to win radios and TVs. 

The ad also said McDonald’s could turn out a complete meal in 50 seconds flat. That is a goal quick-service restaurants everywhere have found sometimes more elusive these days because getting enough workers at many of them is difficult, and some of the eateries seem to have permanent “help wanted’ signs by their doors. 

The Hixson eatery was actually the third McDonald’s in Chattanooga. The first had been opened in 1963 at 5701 Ringgold Road in East Ridge by Knoxville operator Litton Cochran, and it initially had the old-fashioned look with a walk-up counter and other mid-century features.

The second one was at 5749 Brainerd Road, which opened about three months before the Hixson Pike one. 

A photo of the red-brick Brainerd structure — which was located where Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen now is across from Brainerd Village — shows a restaurant about half as big as they would soon become. And drive-through windows did not come until the mid-to-late 1970s and later — after Wendy’s popularized them.

At the time, other McDonald’s were expected to be opened by new franchisee John Haarbauer over the next two years, a 1969 article said. According to his obituary in 2015 after his death at age 88 in Columbia, Tn., Mr. Haarbauer had started as an early McDonald’s franchisee with a friend in Florida in the late 1950s.

Many Chattanoogans might remember that a McDonald’s actually opened in downtown Chattanooga in 1978 and was there for a number of years. Today, it might seem a little more out of place with all the one-of-a-kind, trendy downtown restaurants with freshly prepared ingredients. That is, unless the McDonald’s had a craft brewery backing up to it.

* * * * *

Another local fast-food/quick-service restaurant change came in September, when Krystal closed its eatery at 5401 Brainerd Road.  

The chain did a rebuild there at some point in recent years, but I went and looked at some old Chattanooga city directories — also at the library — and learned that a Krystal was first listed at that exact site and address in 1966. So thanks for more than 50 years of service — and nice smells of cooked onions on a steamy bun!

The first Krystal, of course, was located at Seventh and Cherry streets in downtown Chattanooga beginning in 1932, but the oldest in Chattanooga still at the same site is the one on Cherokee Boulevard. With North Chattanooga being ground zero for interest by developers right now, though, I am sure some firm would love to build where that Krystal is, as is scheduled to be done where the historic Nikki’s restaurant sits a few hundred yards north.

Krystal, which is now headquartered in Atlanta, has also recently announced plans to sell its 100 to 150 company-owned stores to franchisees, a big change from the first few decades, when all of its restaurants were company owned.

Regarding the Brainerd restaurant, while it was actually built after another Brainerd Krystal — the white-colored one at Brainerd and Germantown roads that closed many years ago and has since been razed — it was one of the first ones that sold fried chicken. Krystal had tried that strategy beginning about 1968, and other stores that sold it initially included the ones on Rossville Boulevard and South Broad Street.

Krystal was in the boned fried chicken business for just a few years, but for years afterward one could always tell which ones had sold chicken because they usually had a long tall metal counter, and a person ordered from a different place than he or she picked up the meal. I am not sure if that look was a remodeling done after they quit selling chicken, as I think you used to order chicken at a different place than you ordered the other food.

I never had any Krystal fried chicken in the old days, as I have always stuck with the cheese Krystals and chili. But just as I would enjoy a McDonald’s fried apple pie, I would love to have one — or maybe two — of those Krystal cake doughnuts with chocolate icing that used to sit in covered containers by the cash registers. 

Another longtime memory I have of Krystal is of eating at one of the downtown ones (not the Cherry Street restaurant) as a child in the late 1960s and early 1970s and sitting at a stool along a lunch counter, where a waitress would take your order. I remember there was also a sign telling you not to tip the waitress — perhaps because the company wanted to make sure customers thought it was an economical place to eat, and that the wait staff was perhaps compensated in other ways.

One fact you can definitely say about most large quick-service restaurant chains is that they are constantly changing and evolving.

Apparently, so too are banks.

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