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 right-of-way where it follows the river back down towards Elizabethton. The river goes through almost a canyon with cliffs on one side and the scenery in there is breathtaking.

Anyway, this building was a manufacturing plant for...well...look at the roof and you can tell. They made 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 police, so people tend to drive fast. They got tired of repairing the wood wall from cars hitting it, 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.