AUTOMOBILIA

View west, circa 1990 (via Bellinger)

08.08.2016 (G. Kueber)

(Below in italics is from the National Register listing; not verified for accuracy by this author.)

The one-story, Mission Revival-style gas station sits diagonally on the lot facing the corner of N. Churton and W. Corbin streets (and formerly had a North Churton Street address). It is of stuccoed masonry construction with a flat roof. A garage bay on the left (southeast) end of the façade and storefront on the right (northwest) end of the façade have replacement, metal-framed storefronts and a parapet-roofed porte-cochere on the right end of the façade has recessed sign panels and replacement Spanish-style terra cotta tiles on the parapet. The building has been extensively renovated and, in addition to the modern storefronts, has a massive two-story, brick rear addition with a stuccoed foundation that overwhelms the original structure and renders it non-contributing. The rear wing has a parapet roof with scalloped metal that mimics the terra cotta tile on the original structure. It has a brick watertable, pilasters at the corners of the building that extend above the roofline, fixed windows, and an exterior metal stair at the rear. The gas station was constructed in the late 1930s and the addition was constructed in 2003.

I'm again not sure about the decision to deem this building non-contributing, but it's more borderline to me than some of the other odd choices. Kudos to the developer for preserving the station with masonry and roof showing high fidelity with the original - however, the landscaping directly obscuring the facade, the smoked glass 1980s-1990s plate windows and the scale of the addition detract from the character of the original. Overall, it seems to have been remodeled to be a fairly unused side/front porch for the building behind it, rather than a focal entry/storefront.

Built circa 1929 by/for the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (a.k.a. Esso). The structure that was originally on this property (now at 103 E. Tryon St.) was moved to the east side of the lot to make space for the service station.

Chandler Cates owned/operated this station from 1942 to 1968.

It became an Exxon station (as Standard became Exxon after a merger in 1972) circa 1973.

Corner of Churton and Tryon, looking northeast - 1937 (photomerged stills from H. Lee Waters film)

1943 Sanborn map excerpt, showing the original filling and service station

View east, circa 1945 (photo by Chandler Cates, via Images of America)

Chandler Cates, circa 1945 (photo by Chandler Cates, via Images of America)

The original filling and service station was demolished circa 1955 in order to build a new gas station. The circa 1956 gas station structure was modified in 1988 with a gambrel roof second story.

View north east, circa 1985 (via Bellinger)

View north east, 2019 (via Google Street view)

From Images of America: Hillsborough; original photo from Margaret Whitted.

Built as a gas station circa 1938; sits on the corner of West Corbin and McAdams - McAdams was once the "Prospect Hill Road" that extended north of town, before construction of the Churton/86 extension north of Corbin. (Labelled "New Danville Road" below, which later became Highway 14, it did not exist in 1924.) Highway 70 was constructed between 1927 and 1936, which shifted the traffic pattern from the earlier highway (Highway 10) that went through Hillsborough north on Churton then west on King Street to now heading west out of town on North (now Corbin) Street.

08.08.2016 (G. Kueber)

March 2016

June 2017

This former service station and community store was built in the 1920s as a modernized (i.e. for the convenience of the automobile driver) replacement for the 1880s store, which stood across the road. Charles Samuel McDade owned and operated this store by 1940.

This crossroads was known variously as McDade or McDade's and Hurst's over the years, as shown on various 20th century maps.

View south east, 2007 (photo via Orange County DEAPR)

View north east, 2007 (photo via Orange County DEAPR)

View south east, 2007 (photo via Orange County DEAPR)

07.23.2016 (G. Kueber)

View south east, 02.08.2021 (S. Rankin)

View south, 02.08.2021 (S. Rankin)

View south, 02.08.2021 (S. Rankin)

View north, 02.08.2021 (S. Rankin)

View north west, 02.08.2021 (S. Rankin)

View south, 02.08.2021 (S. Rankin)

From Orange County DEAPR's files:

"This typical 1920s service station features a gable-front frame building, with a projecting gable that protected the gas pumps.  The building is covered in wood weatherboards and its canopy is supported by bungalow-style posts.  It has a center entry, two-over-two windows, a central brick chimney, and a standing seam metal roof."

07.23.2016 (G. Kueber)

View north west, July 4, 1939 (photo by Dorothea Lange via Library of Congress)

July 4, 1939 (photo by Dorothea Lange via Library of Congress)

Caption from photo:

"Rural filling station becomes community center and general grounds for loafing. The men in baseball suits are on a local team which will play a game nearby. The team is called the Cedargrove Team. Fourth of July, Near Chapel Hill, North Carolina"

Dorothea Lange didn't photograph many places in North Carolina, but she took six photos of the baseball team at this store, showing her typical gift for making iconic images. One of the images was used for a homefront informational poster during WWII.

This store is often confused with the Oliver / Pender store in Cedar Grove, which is a different place; the store photographed by Lange is no longer standing in 2016.

July 4, 1939 (photo by Dorothea Lange via Library of Congress)

Caption from photo:

"Fourth of July, near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Rural filling stations become community centers and general loafing grounds. The men in the baseball suits are on a local team which will play a game nearby. They are called the Cedargrove Team"

The site today, view north west (2020 S. Rankin)

138 N. Churton at the right backround - 1939 (H. Lee Waters / State Archives)

This service station was owned and operated by Chandler Cates.

It was the headquarters and mailing address of the Orange Rural Fire Department beginning from June 1968 until circa 1976.

Constructed as a gas station and garage, this low, one-story building is dominated by the projecting, front-gabled structure that originally sheltered pumps. The front-gabled concrete-block building is six bays wide and six bays deep with a brick pier foundation with brick curtain wall, a metal roof, and brick veneer on the façade. A c. 1950 parapet-roofed concrete-block wing projects from the on the right (south) elevation, flush with the facade. Storefront windows are modern replacements with a single panel above each fixed window. There is a nine-light-over-two-panel door with transom near the left (north) end of the façade and a one-light- over-one-panel door near the center. It has fiber-cement siding and one-over-one windows on the side and rear elevations with industrial metal windows at the basement level. There is an overhead garage door and a single pedestrian door at the basement level of the rear (east) elevation. The projecting front-gabled canopy is supported by full-height brick piers with recessed panels. The parapet-roofed wing is three bays wide and single-pile with a hipped metal pent roof across the façade that shelters the modern storefront windows and entrance. According to Bellinger, the building was constructed in 1924. The addition was completed after 1943.

The nomination doesn't mention that the service station originally had a 'false' facade giving the gable roofed front a squared appearance. And although this building is (correctly) deemed a contributing structure to the National Register district, it points to the fallacy of (and inconsistency in) deeming buildings non-contributing due to superficial facade changes. This building has had its entire original facade removed, but it is still contributing - is that because of its relative attractiveness without the original facade, or because the nominator didn't know that this building had had its facade removed. Either way, it's all pretty arbitrary, and yet consequential re: a building's eligibility for tax credits.

08.08.2016 (G. Kueber)

Lloyd's Esso station, far right, view north west, 1937 (H. Lee Waters film clip)

Lloyd's Esso station, 1943 (Sanborn map excerpt)

Lloyd's Esso Service, 1940 yearbook ad

Structure is in right background; photo excerpt from February 22, 1956 (photo by Roland Giduz, via UNC)

View south west, circa 1990 (via Bellinger)

07.02.2016 (G. Kueber)

(Below in italics is from the National Register listing; not verified for accuracy)

This one-story, parapet-roofed Spanish Mission-style gas station is three bays wide and two bays deep with a stuccoed exterior on a low painted brick knee wall. Molded stuccoed pilasters extend above the roofline on the corners of the building and between the garage bays and storefront on the façade and there is a pent roof with green barrel tiles on the façade and the side elevations. The left two bays have replacement overhead garage doors and a replacement storefront on the right bay has a one-light-over-one-panel door with one-light transom flanked by plate-glass display windows. There are display windows and a five-panel door on the right elevation and three fixed windows and a paneled door sheltered by a fabric awning on the rear (west) elevation. Bellinger dates this building to 1932 and the building appears as a “filling station” on the 1943 Sanborn map.

Brown's Store, looking east, 1945; painting by Kenneth Harris (image courtesy of Orange County DEAPR)

Brown's Store, c. 1972 (Courtesy of and copyright by Steve Heron)

From the New Hope Creek Corridor Advisory Committee's website:

The Hollow Rock Store graced the banks of the New Hope Creek at Erwin Road from about 1930 until 1999. It had two incarnations. The first store, shown in this 1972 photograph, was built and owned by John Ransom Whitfield. John Brown rented the store from Whitfield and operated it for nearly 40 years. The store sold groceries and gas, and served as a polling place on election days, in addition to being a significant community gathering place.

In the mid-1960s, there were musical gatherings at the store on Friday nights after closing time. Among other local musicians, the lineup sometimes included banjo player Tommy Thompson, later of the Red Clay Ramblers. Tommy and his wife were part of a band known as the Hollow Rock String Band before the Red Clay Ramblers were formed.Tommy wrote about his time playing at the Hollow Rock:

"[My wife] Bobbie and I bought our gasoline and notions from John Brown at the Hollow Rock Grocery on Erwin Road at New Hope Creek.  John was a soft-spoken gentleman, probably about as old as our century.  He would gladly note down your "box spaghetti" and five gallons of regular, and you didn't have to pay till Saturday.   Sometime after he knew us well enough to extend this trust, he also told us about the music gatherings at the store on Friday nights after closing."

 "I can't remember for sure when we first attended, but it was probably in the winter of '64 and '65.  There were two or three standers around that night, one guitar player who knew pretty much when to hit the chords but not which, and another who was a good country strummer and fine singer.  His name was Tom Turner.  John was a fiddler and banjo player, but too shy to be heard in a crowd.  He was the first person besides myself I'd ever seen "frail" a banjo. His playing didn't sound like mine, or even look like what I'd been learning from Seeger's book.  John called his method "knocking" the banjo, and he hadn't learned it from any book.  He wasn't familiar with the term "frailing."  That was my first lesson in regional and individual stylistics.  I've since heard that peculiar way of sounding the strings (i.e., with the back of one's fingernail), called flailing, rapping, downpicking, clawhammer, and "that old clubfisted way."  Not only do the terms vary from place to place and person to person, but so, to a degree, do the method and the sound.  Seeger had adapted his method from a banjo man in eastern Kentucky."

    "The Hollow Rock Grocery was the kind of store you could stand in the middle of and reach all merchandise.  Bobbie and I became regulars, and one night when a few extra listeners dropped in, the little store began to bulge.  We offered to move the whole shebang to our house, and thus initiated a weekly event to rival in cumulative attendance any secular gathering in the history of Durham County except sports.  By the summer of '66, it would be common to have 150 people in and around our house on any given Friday.  And the party went around the year.  Every Friday night except Christmas, Easter, and any major fiddler's convention weekend."

  "Most of the locals dropped out early on.  I think they were put off by an untraditional household where the woman held a job and went to work, the man wore canvas shoes and went to school, and drinking was permitted indoors.  But Tom Turner stuck with us.  He was a winning singer with a seemingly endless repertoire of bluegrass and country songs.  Bobbie and I had pretty much figured out harmony singing, and the three of us would stand in the living room and sing everything Tom had the patience to teach us.  He usually brought along his son Jerry and sometimes a slim, shy fellow with tattoos who worked in the "powder room" at the BC plant.  He was a wonderful singer, and I wish I could remember his name.  When he joined us, I'd drop down and sing bass, and we had four-part harmony.  I was still working on bluegrass banjo at the time, though it was a pretty blunt instrument in my hands.  At least it gave us one melody instrument, and we all pretended it sounded OK and made us into a band.  We'd practice on Sunday afternoons and then play what we'd learned for fun on Friday nights.  There were always a few people around to listen, and I was having the time of my life.  The fireplace had a built-in mirror over the mantle, and I used to sneak glances just to see how much we looked like a band."

Old Brown's Store with new store under construction to the rear, c. 1972 (Courtesy of and copyright by Steve Heron)

Linwood Crabtree, 1972 (Courtesy of and copyright by Steve Heron)

In this 1972 photo, Linwood Crabtree (right) makes himself at home at the store, enjoying a neighborly conversation. New Hope Creek Corridor Advisory Committee member Bill Olive remembers sleeping in that store one damp night in 1931, when he was just a boy. Bill's family had gone camping on a rock near the creek. When it started pouring rain, they went to the store and John Brown took pity on them and agreed to let them sleep on the floor until morning. Around 1969, John Ransom Whitfield's son (John Glenn Whitfield) and grandson (Stanford Whitfield) took over operation of the store.

Stan and Sue Whitfield, 1972 (Courtesy of and copyright by Steve Heron)

The Whitfields soon decided they needed more space and announced plans in 1972 to tear down the old store and build a new one. Hollow Rock patron Jan Gregg told them she'd like to use the old store as her pottery studio. The Whitfields agreed and Gregg had the store moved to her nearby property. It served as her studio for nearly 20 years, and was used for storage after that. 

Old Brown's Store from the bridge, with new store under construction to the rear, c. 1972 (Courtesy of and copyright by Steve Heron)

Tony Bennett and Walter Mac Stone Jr., with Stan Whitfield in the background, 1972 (Courtesy of and copyright by Steve Heron)

When DOT made the decision to replace the adjacent bridge in the 1990s, the (replacement) Hollow Rock store was deemed obstrcutive to that progress and torn down.

02.24.00 (Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

 In 2006, the location of the old store came to the attention of local activists working to establish the New Hope Preserve, which will have a major access point at the site of the Hollow Rock store. Local activists have begun talking to Jan Gregg about having the store moved back to (or near) its old site, to serve as a focal point of the preserve. [NOTE: The former store was moved to the park several years ago.]

Photos of the store at the park (all photos by S. Rankin, taken 04.01.2022):

View east, 1939 (screenshot from H. Lee Waters film)

View east, 1939 (screenshot from H. Lee Waters film)

View north west, 1940s

Rachel Crook, 1940s

View northwest, 1951 (photo by Roland Giduz)

View north east, 1970s

The structure was built in the 1930s as a filling/service station.

Rachel Crook opened a produce and fish market in the former service station in 1943. She was murdered, possibly at this location, in 1951.

Post-1951, the building was utilized as a taxi stand, bait and tackle shop, pool hall, and Brooks & Tobin used car lot. In 1978 Cam Hill remodeled the building and opened a BBQ place, naming it Crook’s Corner in honor of Rachel Crook. In 1982, Bill Neal and Gene Hamer re-remodeled the building and opened their new restaurant as Crook's Corner. The business was sold in 2018 to Gary Crunkleton and Shannon Healy (a Crook's Corner alumnus).

I am deeply saddened to say (especially being a Crook's alumnus myself) that Crook's Corner is now closed. It shut down in the spring of 2020 in response to the Covid pandemic, and apparently struggled to regain its footing after reopening last fall. It closed after serving its final meals on Sunday, June 6th, 2021.

Richmond Motor Company and its inventory in October of 1939. The 'old' Eno Bridge into and out of town is in the background. The horse is unidentified, 1939 (Composite image from H. Lee Waters Film - State Archives of North Carolina)

The staff of RMC, 1939 (image from H. Lee Waters Film)

RMC sign, 1939 (image from H. Lee Waters Film)

Here's what the authors of the National Register nomination for Hillsborough have to say about it:

Constructed as a car dealership with Art Deco-style detailing, the building has been significantly altered with the replacement of the original storefronts, the addition of a wide pent roof on the façade, and the painting of the exterior, which covered the decorative brickwork. The one-story, parapet-roofed, brick commercial building has a center entrance flanked by display windows with panels above and below the windows. Display windows on the right (north) and left (south) elevations have been covered with modern siding. A full-width, metal pent roof on the façade is supported by square posts. A recessed bay on the right elevation also has a metal pent roof sheltering the replacement doors. Bellinger dates this building to 1932 when Bill Richmond built it as a car dealership. The front section of the building appears as “auto sales” and the rear is labeled as “auto repair dealership” on the 1943 Sanborn map.

07.02.16 (G. Kueber)

What is it with the weird front awnings in downtown Hillsborough? Rip 'em off - yesterday. This building would be far more attractive brought back to its original form.

The nominators for the historic distrct made this building non-contributing (mean it is ineligible for tax-credits,) which doesn't make much sense. Although it has some ugly stuff on the front, it's quite superficial, and the detail of the building remains intact underneath it. What better use of tax credits than to rehab this building back to its original state by removing the silly awning and paint?

07.23.2016 (G. Kueber)

(Below in italics is from the National Register listing; not verified for accuracy by this author.)

The 1-story concrete block garage building with a stepped parapet was built in 1946 by Charles Crisp Oliver. T.L. Oliver, the father of Charles Crisp, operated a blacksmith shop on this site in the early 1900s.

December 1972 (NCSHPO via Tom Campanella)

(Below in italics is from the National Register listing; not verified for accuracy by this author.)

Part of the same building campaign as the two commercial buildings to the north, this two-story, brick commercial building has two storefronts on the first floor and grouped six-over-six wood-sash windows with arched transoms composed of four three-light Craftsman-style wood windows in a segmental-arched brick surround on the second floor. Bands of soldier-course brick at the cornice and between the first and second floors also matches that on 100 and 106 South Churton Street. The two storefronts are mid-century replacements with twenty-light display windows on a low brick knee wall with soldier-course brick band. The one-light doors are recessed slightly and each has a three-light transom. A full-width transom that spans the entire storefront has been covered with a signboard. A stairwell to the second floor is located behind the south entrance. A different building is shown on Sanborn maps from 1911 and earlier. This building was likely constructed in the early 1920s and appears on the 1924 and 1943 Sanborn maps. The 1924 Sanborn maps notes the building’s use as “auto repair.” According to Bellinger this was once used as a men's clothing store and a jewelry store.

1960s - screen capture from "This is Orange County

"

07.31.2016 (G. Kueber)

1937 - combined panning shot from H. Lee Waters film

Renovation time, 1968 (via The News of Orange County)

Renovation time, 1968 (via The News of Orange County)

At some point it was Beck's Motors/Automotive. In 1968, the structure was renovated and faulonialized into a branch of the North Carolina National Bank, which sold the property in 1988.

From the National Register nomination:

Shown on the 1911 Sanborn map, this building is one of the earliest commercial buildings in the district. The Colonial Revival-style two-story building has a painted common-bond brick exterior with a parapet roof that steps down toward the rear of the building. There is an applied wood, modillion cornice on the façade. A recessed entrance on the right (north) end of the storefront has paired fifteen-light French doors with an eight-light transom and there is a night deposit box on the north wall of the recessed entrance. There are two forty-eight-light picture windows on the left (south) end of the façade separated from each other and the entrance bay by wood pilasters. There is an ATM set into the far left end of the façade and a flared metal pent roof extends the full width of the storefront [HPC]. Three nine-over-nine wood-sash windows at the second- floor level have arched brick surrounds. There is an alley along the right (north) side of the building and the right elevation is covered with stucco. The building was erected as a general store, was later a Chevrolet dealership, and is now a bank. The Colonial Revival-style storefront details were likely added in the 1930s [ed. note: this actually occured in 1968].

07.31.2016 (G. Kueber)

I wish someone could come along one evening an pull all the Colonial Revival gradue off of the buildings downtown, and allow these buildings to return to some simple elegance  - versus the faux fancy shutters, pent roofs, fake shutters and other tackiness.

In December of 2016, the Wooden Nickel pub announced that they would be moving to this building in late 2017 (from 105 N. Churton.)

Thr structure was an early auto repair and garage, servicing Hillsboro and those traveling the Central Highway/State Highway 10. It was likely built circa 1915 (i.e. sometime between 1913 and 1924).

1924 Sanborn map excerpt

The 1943 Sanborn map shows it still in use for automotive storage and/or repair. It burned sometime in the 1950s.

1943 Sanborn map excerpt

On fire, circa 1950s (photo courtesy of the Alliance for Historic Hillsborough)

The area on US HWY 70 is known as "Eno Crossroads" (designated Orange County site OR661), and was developed circa 1925, when the highway was built/expanded/improved.

The 1993 Orange County historic property survey states (based on the property owner’s statements) that the service station was built in 1929 but was moved approximately 100 feet from its original location, which was closer to the highway (the modern road is approximately 100 feet from the structure’s current location). The service station structure appears to be in its current location in the 1955 aerial photo (USDA), and the 1938 aerial photo also seems to have it in the same location. Since the informant was the daughter of the people who owned the property and service station, it is highly likely that her information is correct.

Griffin's Store, 1960's

From US 70, looking south on University Road towards University Station - Griffin's Store is to the right (03.10.72)
(Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper)

Griffin's Store, 1992 (photo courtesy of Orange County DEAPR)

1992 (photo courtesy of Orange County DEAPR)

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