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Eastern Shore Store

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What is: This store has everything!  Ashtrays, fireworks, keychains, ham, bacon, sausage, peanuts.  Everything imaginable gift and trinket you can think of. It has character…and where I first discovered real (no need to refrigerate) smoked bacon slabs from RM Felds.

What was: roadside stores like this were mostly family run and prospered in the 1950s and 60s as American families (baby boomer children) took to the road for vacations or trips to the local beach. When young American men came back from the war, it was a prosperous time, automobiles affordable and production expanding. It was a time for family road trips to experience America. Before the days of chain restaurants and stores, the character of regional foods and activities permeated through the road side stores. The road trip was as much a part of the vacation and experience as the destination was.

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Grain Elevators

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What is: Often abandoned, standing taller than the local courthouse, grain elevators in small town across Texas and the United States.

What was: Whether they hold corn, milo, soybeans, or sunflower seeds, all grain elevators are basically big storage tanks. The number of operating grain elevators peaked around 1984 at around 1500 members in the Texas association. Today there are fewer than than 500 in Texas.

The small-town, family-owned elevators are going the way of the independent grocers. Kids aren’t interested in continuing the business, so they’re either selling out or shutting the doors. Many of the concrete cathedrals of the plains were built after World War II to store government-owned grain. Like the cotton gins of Mississippi, delivering product to the elevators was a social time, as all the local farmers got together to compare notes and share stories.

What is: Robinson Grain Co., Conway TX. The Handbook of Texas reports Conway had a population of 175 in 1969 but only 50 people in 1970. In 2016 the population was recorded as three

What was: Grain elevators were invented by Joseph Dart and Robert Dunbar in 1842 in Buffalo, New York. They created the grain elevators to help with the problem of unloading and storing grain that was being transported through the Erie Canal. Grain Elevators in Conway TX date back to about 1914 and these ones are beside the abandoned railway roadbed of the Chicago, RockIsland and Gulf Railway.

A grain elevator is a facility for agriculture designed to stockpile or store grain. Bucket elevators are used to lift grain to a and then it can fall through spouts and/or conveyors into one or more bins, silos, or tanks in a facility. It can then be emptied from bins, tanks, and silos, and conveyed, blended, and weighted into trucks, railroad cars, or barges for shipment. Concrete silos are better than wood or metal bins because the thick walls insulate the grain from extreme weather

In 1994, this facility was privately owned and was considered a small regional grain elevator. There were 6 locations in the area with a capacity of 4.5 million bushels of storage. It was part of the Texas Grain and Feed Association representing 900 grain, feed and processing firms at that time. Today that organization supports some 400 member companies ranging from sizable producers to medium and small-scale family-owned companies such as feed producers and grain marketing businesses. Ben Boerner, Texas Grain and Feed president noted, “The small-town, family-owned elevators are going the way of the independent grocers,” Boerner says. “The kids aren’t interested in continuing the business, so they’re either selling out or shutting the doors.” (Source: https://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2008-02-08/589092/)

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Tredegar Iron Works, Richmond VA

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What is: The old steel mill wheel at the front of Tredegar iron works which is today the main visitor center for the Richmond National Battlefield Park and the American Civil War Center at Historic Tredegar.

What was: the iron works plant in Richmond opened in 1837 by a group of businessmen and industrialists who sought to capitalize on the Transportation Revolution. Tredegar operated on hydro power by harnessing the James River and the canal. The plant employed skilled domestic and foreign workers as well as slaves and free blacks. By 1860 it was the largest facility of its kind in the South – a contributing factor to the choice of Richmond as the capital of the confederacy.

It produced the steel for the first Confederate ironclad ship, as well as about half of the artillery production. It also manufactured steam locomotives, rail spikes and clamps. The iron works is one of the few Civil War era buildings that survived the burning of Richmond.

Tredegar began producing again by the end of 1865. By 1873 it employed 1,200 workers and was profitable business. The financial panic of 1873 hit the company hard and it did not make the transition to steel. The Tredegar company remained in business throughout the first half of the 20th century, and supplied requirements of the armed forces of the United States during World War I and World War II.

The company name Tredegar derives from the Welsh industrial town that supplied much of the company’s early workforce.

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Cohasset Depot, Virginia

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What is: Cohasset Depot, is an unincorporated community in Fluvanna County, Virginia

What was: Cohasset became a community because of the Virginia Air Line Railway, with the train station being known as the Fork Union Depot. The station served the community of Cohasset itself which grew up around the depot soon after it was built – a general store and post office, four houses, a very early gas station, all of which still stand. Mrs. Lettie Dickey, who with her husband sold the land for the station to the railroad, had named the community Cohasset for her hometown in Massachusetts.

The train traveled from Strathmore Yard on the James River to Cohasset, Carysbrook, Palmyra, Troy and to Gordonsville or Charlotttesville. The railroad was completed and began operating in October 1908. This branch route was built to handle cargo that would have otherwise been too tall or wide to fit through the tunnels that crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains between Charlottesville and Waynesboro.

Coal destined for Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia was sent down the James River Line to the southern junction of the route at Strathmore Yard, near Bremo Bluff. The shipments then proceeded up the Virginia Air Line to the northern junction at Lindsay, and continued on to Gordonsville. The Fork Union Depot served as a typical small railroad station of its day. Much of the local commercial business was associated with the nearby sawmill, canning factory, and two small oil storage companies. The passengers came from the surrounding farms, small towns, and the Fork Union Military Academy. The train was the main transportation for Cadets attending nearby Fork Union Military Academy for many years.

The railway also became an important line of communication that connected the small communities along the route with larger cities, such as Washington, D.C. C&O began to operate the company directly in July 1909, and acquired it outright in July 1912. In 1927, dedicated passenger rail service was reduced to one train per day in each direction, and replaced by mixed (passenger and freight) trains in June 1932. Mixed trains stopped running in 1954. The growing adoption of automobiles, trucks and airplanes had been taking business away from railroads since the 1930s.

On October 26, 1971, the Fluvanna Board of Supervisors unsuccessfully sued the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad to keep the railway in operation; it was abandoned in November 1975. Source: Wikipedia

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Cotton Gin Outside Clarksdale, MS

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What is: Cotton Gin near Friars Point, Mississippi. Abandoned cotton gin between Clarksdale and Friars Point, MS.

What was: Founded in the 1830s and continuing to operate into the 20th century, the King and Anderson Plantation was an enormous spread of seventeen thousand acres just northwest of Clarksdale and reputed to be the largest family plantation in Mississippi. It was located near this Cotton Gin.

Originally, large plantations had their own private cotton gins. Over time, the increasing number of smaller farms, the emergence of sharecropping after the civil war and new technologies led to the rise of public gins. By the early twentieth century, large, public facilities that not only ginned cotton but also sold seeds to cottonseed oil firms, populated nearly every town and county in the state’s cotton belt.

In addition to the economic function, public gins served a social function. “Trips to the gin provided farmers living in the far reaches of Mississippi’s counties with breaks in the tedium and solitude of toiling on small, isolated farms. The same gins served black and white farmers, and gin operators made no efforts to serve whites before blacks. While waiting in line to gin their cotton, farmers of both races came together to discuss pests, weather patterns, and prices. As shared public spaces, therefore, gins offered brief respites from the stifling confines of Mississippi’s racial caste system.” Source: https://mississippiencyclopedia.org/entries/cotton-gins/.

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Terlingua Ghost Town, Texas

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What is: Terlingua Ghost Town, Texas.  Abandoned and crumbling adobe and rock houses from the mining town of Terlingua, TX. Today official population 58, an artists community and Texas’ most visited ghost town. They say “Stop by, sip a cool drink, enjoy the shade of our front porch, and hang out. You’ll go home with some stories to tell.” Home of the national chili cookoff that draws thousands every year.

What was: In the mid 1800s cinnabar was discovered here. It is the key element from which metal mercury is extracted. For a period of time in the early 1900s it was the largest area producing mercury in the United States and the company installed a 20 ton Scott furnance to advance its industrialization and productivity . Prior to the use of vehicles in the early 1930s, mule-drawn wagon trains delivered the quicksilver to the railroad at Alpine, Texas. The Chisos Mining Company ran the “large general store, provided a company doctor, operated the post office, the Chisos Hotel, a commissary, erratic telephone service, dependable water service, and a school. Later, it would also operate a gasoline station, a theater, and a confectionary shop. Growing to a population of close to 2000 people. It was estimated that by 1934 the company had sold over $12 million in mercury and one employee claimed the company averaged daily profits of $2,000 during the early war years.” (source: legendsofamerica.comhttps://www.legendsofamerica.com/tx-terlingua/). It closed in 1945 after World War II.

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Route 66, Ford panel delivery truck

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What is: A Ford panel sedan delivery truck, at the side of the road, Route 66

What was: Chevrolet is often credited with offering the first true sedan delivery body style in 1928. However, Ford was a leading purveyor of Sedan Delivery vehicles throughout the 1930s. Much of the sheet metal, including the fenders and front doghouse, is shared with the ’37 Ford passenger car. In the 1940s Ford’s Sedan Deliveries carried the styling of Deluxe-series cars — slated “gills” flanking a horizontal-bar grille. Sedan Deliveries also got a larger cargo body that year.

Inside was a beautiful art-deco dashboard, in contrasting colors. Standard equipment included a column gearshift, dual wipers and visors, ashtrays on both sides, full insulation and interior lining — even a clock. Many connoisseurs of design declare it the best-looking sedan delivery ever. There were about 5300 Ford Sedan Delivery models made in 1940. The 1942 Ford Sedan Delivery is rare, as all civilian vehicle manufacturing was halted shortly after Pearl Harbor. Passenger car-based delivery models would not return at Ford until 1952.

Panel trucks were used by construction and maintenance contractors, by farmers for selling fruits and vegetables, delivery vehicles and configured as ambulances and hearses.

The period of time spanning the late 1940’s to the late 1950’s was the golden age of the Sedan Delivery. While Chevrolet and Ford dominated the Sedan Delivery market, a few other manufacturers (such as Pontiac and Studebaker) got in on the action as well. In 1960, Ford’s Sedan Delivery ambitions were transferred from the full-sized Ford line to the brand-new Falcon platform. The Falcon-based vehicle was offered through 1965.

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Broyles Mobil Station, Glenrio, NM. Then and Now

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What is: Broyles Mobil Station, Glenrio, NM, at the front is a drive-thru bay with a wood canopy roof extension. This is supported by two original wood posts. On the far right side is an outbuilding which was built as a restrooms.

What was: John Wesley Ferguson constructed the building in 1925ish and it was later owned by Jim Broyles as a franchise of the Mobil Oil Company. The construction of U.S. 66 through Glenrio in the 1920s brought new businesses and a new commercial area evolved along the highway, as the railroad town of Glenrio had started to wane. By the 1960s, the community boasted two motels, three restaurants, and at least seven gas stations

For the past 100 years gas stations have occupied prime locations along main streets, suburban corners, on small town roads and highway. They are one of America’s most commercial building types and over the years have gone through various architectural design iterations. They represent America’s mobility, car culture, pop culture, corporate standardization/branding and the changes in customer service – from staff to fill the tank and clean your windshield, to full service garages, sale of roadmaps, bathrooms, diners and corner stores.

The advent of the Interstate highway network routed traffic away from the once-thriving often family owned gas stations, now located on secondary roads, many falling into disrepair.

In 1969, there were 236,000 gas stations. By 2016, there were 111,000 retail locations in the U.S. that sell fuel to the public. The number of gas stations has been declining over the past ten years due, in part, to increased competition, stricter environmental regulations, and shrinking gasoline profit margins.

Broyles in 2022

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The Cactus Motel, Tucumcari, New Mexico

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What is: the abandoned (and now torn down) Cactus Motel, Route 66, Tucumcari, New mexico

What was: The town of Tucumcari, New Mexico is located approximately forty miles west of the Texas border and was the first substantial town in New Mexico for westbound travelers on Route 66. The arrival of Route 66 in Tucumcari in the late 1920s both improved transportation and economic opportunity in the community. The increased flow of traffic through the area brought automobile tourists and commerce. By the late 1940s motels, restaurants, shops and gas stations dominated the main part of Route 66 running through Tucumcari. At one point the town advertised that it offered travelers over 2,200 rooms for overnight accommodations.

The most common type of lodging facility in Tucumcari along Route 66 was the tourist court. These complexes of individual cottages or rows of connected individual units came into vogue in the late 1920s. The Cactus Motor Lodge is representative of what was an up-scale motel built along Route 66 in the mid 20th century. The motel was the first motel westbound travelers would find as they entered the town.  It was built directly facing U.S. 66, and remained in continuous operation from 1941 until the 1990s.

I.E. and Edna Perry built the Cactus lodge in 1941. The original buildings were constructed in the Pueblo Revival Style and featured tile tub and shower baths, each with individual heating unit Box springs, Sealy mattresses, double insulated walls, carpeted floors, steam heat and Car-by-door garages and free radios. The motel’s western theme played upon the regional culture, which was popular with tourists.  The motel’s modern amenities revealed that it was more than a tourist court, but a motor lodge – a term connoting higher class of lodging. Its advertising noted that it Duncan Hines and AAA Recommended

The motel included three wings of units forming a “U” shape and an office, the latter of which was a dance hall when the motel opened. Local myth says that people gambled in the basement of the Dance Hall and that it had a tunnel with an outside exit in case of a police raid.  Originally the Cactus Motor Lodge featured small landscaped park and children’s playground in the middle of the court.

The Cactus Motor Lodge became member of the Best Western referral chain. The Best Western referral chain began in the 1940s and was one of the most successful of referral systemsMotel referral chains were an effort by groups of small motel owners to maintain standards and create networks.

In 1952, Norm Wegner purchased the motel. Wegner added an artificial stone exterior to the buildings and converted the dance hall to an office. The addition of Perma-Stone, a synthetic siding, was considered a trendy way to update older buildings. He also added a swimming pool just to the west of the office/manger’s residence. Wegner and his wife lived on site and raised five children in their residence at the motel in the 1960s.

After Route 66 was decommissioned, the motel lost much of its business.  It went through several different ownership changes and in the 1990s the motel units were closed. The courtyard was converted into an RV Park for a period of time.

The postcard shown below, had the following text printed the back of the card: “Duncan Hines and AAA Recommended Located at the East Entrance of TUCUMCARI, NEW MEXICO on Hiway 66 Tile tub and shower baths, each with individual heating unit. Double insulated walls. Carpeted floors. Steam heat. Enclosed and locked garages. Free radios, Phone 600 Member Best Western Motels Mrs. I E Perry, Owner“.  The Cactus Motor Lodge on Highway 66 in Tucumcari, NM … “A Western Welcome Awaits You”

 

 

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St Agnes Chapel, Terlingua, TX.

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What is: St Agnes Chapel, Terlingua, TX…the ghost town of Terlingua Texas, a small single and simple one room adobe church,  in some disrepair, with plain hard wooden benches, a worn pine floor, simple altar and stain glass windows. Apparently in 2016, the church got some repair work done to its adobe walls

 

What was: The ghost town of Terlingua is in the heart of the Chihuahuan Desert, one of the most rugged and hostile environments in Texas. The discovery of quicksilver in the mid-1880s turned Terlingua from a sleepy little village into a town of a thousand-plus residents. Cinnabar is a red stone from which using a chemical process, mercury is extracted.  By 1913, Terlingua had a dependable water supply, mail delivery, somewhat reliable telephone service, a hotel, and a physician. As the mining continued, by the 1930s, the town was home to 3,000 people and became the leading producer of mercury.  Slowly, however, the mines ran out of ore and closed and the town began its decline in the 1940s. In 2010 census there were 60 people officially living in the town.

In 1914, St. Agnes Church, also known as Chisos Mission, was established and became a focal point of the Terlingua mining town. The adobe building was constructed on a raised stone foundation on the side of a hill overlooking the town. The building has survived the ravages of time and remains an iconic symbol of the importance of faith in this remote place.

Itinerant priests held services at the church once a month and also officiated at baptisms, weddings, and funerals. Church records indicate the priests adopted the Terlingua Cemetery. Although the burial ground is listed as St. Agnes Chisos Cemetery on church records, the official death records continued to list it as the Terlingua Cemetery. While the town was once segregated with Mexican families living east of the company store and Anglo families to the west, both Mexicans and Anglos were laid to rest in the same cemetery.

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