The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1906-08-16

electric system. johnson City was too
fast for the horse car from the start and
enjoyed first class street car plant
with eight miles of track, connecting
the city proper with Carnegie, the bus
tling suburb.
The boom caught Cy Lyle in the very
vortex, and he made daily out of the
Comet, and it was one of the brightest
little sheets in the state, taking the AS
sociated Press, and employing the wri-
ter of this article, and N. B. Remine,
of the Bristol Courier, as reporters.
While the town doomed the paper
doomed and Cy had smile that was
not supposed to come off. Bat it did.
When the citizens snapped town lots
until they had eaten up all the boot
the town got weary standing mp with a
backbone of hot air and suddenly col
lapsed. The man who owned a lot or
any other property in the city was
worse off than the man who bad moth
ing at all. Some of the most enterpris-
ing citizens, among whom was Cy Lyle,
held up the corpse of the dead city for
year or two on mere nerve, and then
its collapse was complete. Cy never
lost faith in the city and this led to his
good fortune. He reduced the paper
from daily to weekly aud kept in
the front of the town urging it to have
faith. But the absence of beefsteak
caused many of its best citizens to move
away. Cy printed notice of their de.
parture embellished with much praise
and much regret. People seeing Cy's
faith in the city took advantage of it
and gave him the lots they could not
sell. Usually they worked " the lots
off on Cy in payment for advertising or
subscriptions. The space rates in the
Comet were on par with the price of
the lots and SO business still kept up
Cy's eagerness to pick up these lots got
to be great joke, and citizens would
nudge each other and smile grimly, and
say that they had succeeded in "giv.
ing" Cy another lot.
But few years later, after the street
car line had been torn up, moved away
and sold, and the town was as dead as
it was possible for it to be, Wat P,
B.ownlow, the present representative
of that district, was elected to congress.
Money loOsened up and Brownlow
planted the Soldiers Home by the side
of the dead town, and OF once it's corpse
raised up and another boom began. Oy
got rich selling some Of his lots that
cost him dollar for years subscrip-
tion to the Comet for $400 and $500. To
humor himself he erected 500, res,
idence in the suburbs Of the city as Q
memorial to his good fortune, aud lives
there with his numerous family today
one of the happlest men in the state
He named his home "Builtless" in con
tradistinction to Biltmore," the pala
tial home of George Vanderbilt at Ash
vile, N. G. The town is booming agar
and the Comet is still weekly.
The street Car line has been replaced
with new one which runs to the Sol
diers' Home and has good patronage
The present superintendent, l.. s
Jones, was a trolley boy for the write
when he was forced by the collapse 0
the Daily Comet to become a motormal
on the old line. The boy was calle,
"Loaf" in those days because he show
ed such an aversion to actual work, bu
, he was very handy on one Of the oil
nickle in the slot cars. All one sum
mer he rode behind, put the trolley o
} when it flew off, aud turned it aroun
} for the motorman at the end OF the line
) In the meantime the newspaper motor
) man taught the boy how to run the ca
! and when the town shriveled up unit
it could support but one car, Loaf wa
7 put in charge of it. Then when tn
car was taken off for lack of patronag,
0 Loaf was placed in charge of the powt
q plant, which still continued to mah
g electricity for lighting the town. 3
Y was faithful and competent in all IL
D positions in which he had been place,
: and when the new company complete
t it's line he was made superintendent
d after assisting in the construction
n the line.
The town has reached its former gl
It ry and is expecting more. A doz'
% railroads have been surveyed throus
i and about it. So it looks good.
'e Many of the faces one sees there nc
n were not there in the other day, b
n some of the old ones are there still al
le give zest to visit Of an old time ba
t. to his former home.
l. The first voice that fell upon my ea
Is when the train stopped at the tank W
ct that of Butler Taylor, the negro porte
ss who rode the crest of the towns fl
" tunes and misfortunes since the day
re first doomed and boasted of the Pie
lie mont, the first big hotel built in 1