UPDATE - Hodges Art Gallery Couple

I've gotten some great feedback on this photo so far, and I wanted to do a quick update to share the new details. First of all, Main Street was renamed to State Street, possibly in the early 1900s. So 529 State Street still exists and is on the Virginia side. Here is a Google street view of the building, 529 is now a hair salon (the red section of building in the center).

This is one of the original storefronts in the town and the building itself is also on the National Register of Historic Places. Here is a document from when the area was nominated.

It is loaded with historical information about the street and stores. What I find most interesting is that the street itself serves as the state line. So one side of the street is Virginia and the other is Tennessee. I had pictured it the other way, where if you drove down the street, eventually you'd cross the border perpendicularly. 529 State Street is mentioned in the document specifically. However, it seems the construction of this particular building would have occurred AFTER the period when this photo was taken. It declares: "The storefront at 529 State Street was built in 1939 and has maroon colored Carrara glass." So, it's safe to assume the actual photography studio or "Art Gallery" building is long gone.

Now, about the photo itself. I've been in touch with a gentleman who is a historian of the Bristol Historical Association (isn't the internet wonderful?!) and he says about the photo: "That is very interesting...[The] assumption could be right. Prostitution was fairly common turn of the century, not likely from a bar or saloon. It was a little more private and off Main Street." He also mentioned that this photo would have been very risque at the time.

Although I'm no closer to figuring out who the actual people are in this photo, it is wonderful to have it firmly connected to a time and place now. My next steps are to finish reading through the National Registrar document for any other clues. I'd like to find out when Main Street was renamed to State Street. Then another trick up my sleeve is to check the census from this time period. Back then most people lived above their shop, so I could potentially track down the name and info of the Hodges shop owner (probably with the last name Hodges, making it all that much easier, in theory) by finding the address in the census. If I can't find the descendants of the people in the photo, it would still be cool to be able to tell someone that their great-great-granddad was the photographer who took this photo of an old man and his whore.  😂