There’s a lot of earth-moving going on in the block bordered by Broad Street, First Street, Green Street, and Second Street. The buildings that were within this area were demolished in the last few weeks.
One of the buildings that was recently demolished was a nondescript white building that was formerly a Quality Oil service station. This is how it looked before demolition.
#23 Quality Oil Shell Station was listed at 817 W. First Street, bordered on one side by Green Street.
This is how the station looked at an earlier time, when it operated as a service station.
Here are two views of the station in January 1949. Notice the house at the right of the building in the first photo, and a different house at the left in the second photo. According to the 1949/50 Winston-Salem City Directory, there were houses across the street as well, where the storage buildings are located today.
Green Street is between the station and the house in the above photo. Frank Jones took these images in 1949. His automobile is the smaller vehicle in the photos. The station was operated by Reid Whitlow. Frank was related to Whitlow through Whitlow’s wife.
The service station building is gone now, and probably by the time this post is published, all concrete will be removed from the site. The stone reinforcement around a house-site in the next block is also being removed.
And no, this is not an April Fool post!
Photographs courtesy of Forsyth County Public Library Photograph Collection.
We were neighbors of the Whitlow family at Sunny Side Homes between S Main and Stockton Sts. When Mr Whitlow was operating the Shell Station.
I’m so happy you knew my grandfather he was a fine man.