Getting the gas

 A recent  Facebook post of an old scene. Are these buildings still there? Love seeing the old cars...must be the 50s.

Can it be Thai Basil Restaurant? On State St. and the corner of Doughtery.

Actually it's not. When I checked the location I determined that you can't change the ground which slopes steeply around Thai Basil...it has to be another corner in town!

Another clue is that Thai Basil is on the south side of State Street, while our Gulf Station was obviously on the north side...check out the shadows!

Then I remembered the theatre The Pix had been demolished many years before I moved here in the early 2000s. Sorry about that. I wish I could easily find another photo of that block from back whenever. But a short search hasn't given me easy results. Mmm, I know the Swannanoa History Museum will probably have a photo though.

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I featured another old gas station building which was turned into a restaurant before. 

Old Gas Station and ... July 3, 2022

New Restaurant Opens Finally  Dec. 9, 2022

Old gas pumps. Unknown date, but probably 1920s is my guess.

Tunnel Road Gulf in late 1950 - early 1951, Asheville NC Shared by Wayne Henderson on 'You know you grew up in Asheville, North Carolina if...' Facebook page.

Here's another service station which I may have shared before.

Frank Lloyd Wright "Lindholm Service Station"

 by Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons

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From FB post by Jim Smiley on History of North Carolina 

Around 1950, in rural North Carolina, Hampton Barnes operated a small but essential store on N.C. 107 between Tuckasegee and Glenville. The store, like many small businesses in that era, was more than just a place for transactions—it was a community hub where neighbors and travelers alike could stop for supplies, share stories, and find convenience in a remote area. Hampton Barnes, often seen pumping gas at his store, provided a range of services. In addition to gasoline, he sold groceries, bait for fishing, and other everyday items that served the needs of the local community.

For residents in this rural part of North Carolina, Barnes’ store would have been a lifeline. The simplicity of life in the area meant that general stores like his played a vital role. Gas stations were fewer and farther between in the 1950s, and combining fuel sales with groceries and bait made his store a one-stop-shop for the local fishermen and farmers who frequented the surrounding region.

As time passed and highways developed, small, family-run businesses like Barnes' began to decline. Around 1965, Barnes closed his store, marking the end of an era in local commerce. His store, now a piece of nostalgic history, serves as a reminder of simpler times when community and small businesses were at the heart of American life,

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Sharing with Sepia Saturday, where many images from the past are gathered to be shared, in whatever format or relation (or none) to a theme that Alan gives us for each week.

A BIG congratulations for 16 years of Sepia Saturdays! Thanks so much!

Alan says this in regarding his 800th post:

It started as a joke way back in 2009. At times there were hundreds of participants and at other times just a loyal few. Sepia Saturday has continued, through good times and bad, providing a platform for people to share their photographic-based memories. I was looking back through the archives recently and I came across this "Sepia Saturday Manifesto" which I produced fifteen years ago. Reading through it, it still seems relevant today, so it is worth a reprint.

A MANIFESTO FOR SEPIA SATURDAY.

1. We belong to a favoured generation: the first generation of the digital age. Whilst our ancestors have valiantly attempted to preserve their own unique history in scraps of written narrative and faded and creased photographs, we have the unique ability to fix these memories for ever as our legacy to future generations.

2.  Scanning, blogging and digital storage provide us with the means of preserving the past, but we also have a duty to preserve the stories and images of those that contributed to our society as we know it. Whilst we can leave to academic historians the task of documenting the lives of the rich and famous, we believe that the most remote second-cousin and the most distant of maiden aunts has made a unique contribution to the lives that we lead. Each one of us has a duty to help preserve the stories of these builders of the modern world.

3. Whilst images alone are fascinating documents, images with words - be they simple half-remembered names and dates or gripping narrative histories - are even better. The synthesis of image and words provides the most effective insight into the past.

4. "Sepia" is an alliterative convenience rather than a descriptive criterion. Let our images be in sepia, in black and white or in full colour : what matters is the message and not the medium.

5.  We recognise that we have not only a duty to share our past but also to ensure that it is effectively preserved. Whilst images printed on photographic paper and words written in old notebooks fade with time, they have proved, in most cases, remarkably resilient over time. Perhaps one of the greatest dangers facing the millions of digital images and the endless pages of computerised words we produce today is that they can so easily be lost by the pressing of a wrong button or by the hacking of a troubled soul. We recognise and we accept our responsibility to back-up and securely save.

The two main principles of Sepia Saturday have remained throughout the last 800 weeks - SAVE AND SHARE. We have a duty to save and to share our photographic heritage. Therefore, for the eight hundredth time, I am inviting you to join in with Sepia Saturday by posting a photographic memory and adding a link to the list below on or around Saturday 8th November 2025.

Thanks for supporting Sepia Saturday for the last 16 years ... hopefully we will have a few more years in us yet.

Sharing with Sepia Saturday

and My Corner of the World