Latest Structures Page 33

Cave Creek Service Station, Cave Creek Arizona

Cave Creek Service Station, Cave Creek Arizona

The Cave Creek Service Station was built in Phoenix in 1936. The station was moved from Phoenix to Cave Creek in 1952, but the move did not adversely affect its architectural character. When automobiles were first invented, gasoline was dispensed not by special stations but rather by general oil retailers who sold kerosene for illumination and lubricants for machinery. Motorists lugged the gas in metal can from bulk tank to car tank, a laborious, impractical, and dangerous ritual. Fortunately the practice was short-lived. Around 1905 pumps began to appear that allowed gas to be transferred quickly and safely via rubber hose to the awaiting car. When car sales soared and the demand for gas skyrocketed, petroleum companies scoured the countryside for

Piney Point Coast Guard Light Station, Piney Point Maryland

Piney Point Coast Guard Light Station, Piney Point Maryland

Constructed in 1836, Piney Point was the first lighthouse built on the Potomac River. John Donohoo, constructor of several lighthouses in the Chesapeake Bay area, erected this structure at a cost of about $5,000. The property on which the lighthouse was constructed was acquired in fee simple from Henry Suter and Charlotte Suter, his wife, by warranty deed dated 24^th December 1835 for $300. Piney Point Light continued as a manned station under the lighthouse service until the incorporation of that service into the Coast Guard in 1939. The Coast Guard discontinued the light in 1964. The Coast Guard retains the Piney Point site as a station. The Keeper's residence is maintained as a facility for housing personnel. The lighthouse presently

Rock Island Passenger Depot, Oskaloosa Iowa

Rock Island Passenger Depot, Oskaloosa Iowa

The Oskaloosa Rock Island Passenger Depot was built in 1887-1888. The relatively small size (main block, 59'x 31'), and simple design (single story rectangle with gable roof) of this building, are typical of many depots constructed in the state during the late nineteenth century by a number of different railroads. However, the Oskaloosa depot was built of brick, rather than the wood frame construction used for most of these small depots. The use of brick may indicate the importance of Oskaloosa as a county seat town, or it may have been that local brick was readily available (no documentation on origin of the brick has been located). The major decorative elements on the exterior are the turned spindles used as eave

Liebler-Rohl Gasoline Station, Lancaster New York

Liebler-Rohl Gasoline Station, Lancaster New York

The Liebler-Rohl Gasoline Station, constructed in 1935, was built at a time when the automobile had become entrenched in the scene of American transportation. This particular station bridges the architectural gap between the picturesque gasoline stations of the late 1920s and early 'thirties and the era of the box stations of industrial designer Walter Dorwin Teague, which often incorporated Streamline Moderne massing and detailing. It is characteristic of the type of high-style stations that replaced ramshackle gas shacks in the wake of nationwide competitions sponsored in 1927 by Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the Art Center of New York, the American Civic Association, and the Adolph Goebel Company. Typically, gasoline stations such as this were erected on prominent corner lots, often

Hooper Island Light Station, Hooperville Maryland

Hooper Island Light Station, Hooperville Maryland

The Hooper Island Light Station was built for the federal governmental efforts to provide an integrated system of navigational aids and to provide for safe maritime transportation in the Chesapeake Bay, a major transportation corridor for commercial traffic from the early nineteenth through twentieth centuries. This pneumatic caisson lighthouse embodies a distinctive design and method of construction that typified lighthouse construction on the Chesapeake Bay during the late half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Of the eleven pneumatic caisson lighthouses built in the United States, seven were built in the Chesapeake Bay; three were built in the Virginia portion of Chesapeake Bay (Wolf Trap Lighthouse, 1894, Smith Point Lighthouse, 1897, and Thimble Shoal Lighthouse, 1914); and four in the

Spur Gasoline Station, Cynthiana Kentucky

Spur Gasoline Station, Cynthiana Kentucky

During the 1920s when this building was constructed, the future of the automobile was promising; but the American public had not yet said a final farewell to the horse. Major problems had to be solved before the automobile (consequently the filling station) was to become a permanent fixture on the American landscape. Early 20^th century roads were quite primitive. Construction and maintenance was not yet a federal responsibility; the Kentucky State Highway Department was not even established until 1912. According to the Good Roads Yearbook all of the state's roads outside the cities were macadamized (gravel), with the exception of 59 miles of bitumen-covered gravel and three miles concrete, circa 1915. City streets were surfaced and maintained more efficiently; therefore, it

S.S. Blinky Jr. Auto Building, Casa Grande Arizona

S.S. Blinky Jr. Auto Building, Casa Grande Arizona

From 1946 to 1981, this was the site of Wilson Motors, Inc., owned by C.J. Blinky Wilson. Wilson got his start in the automobile business at the Casa Grande Garage, on Sacaton Street, which was started by his father Hugh in 1912. After working with his father during the late 1920's and early 1930's, Wilson formed Pate and Wilson Motors in partnership with Irvin Pate, still at the Sacaton location. In 1935, they moved to a new building somewhere near Five Points. Later in the 1940's Wilson set out on his own to establish Wilson Motors at this location. Wilson served on the Casa Grande city council in 1933-35. According to two informants, an inmate at the Arizona State Prison in

Peach Springs Trading Post, Peach Springs Arizona

Peach Springs Trading Post, Peach Springs Arizona

Peach Springs lies within the traditional territory of the Hualapai people. The springs were reliable water sources that were used by Native Americans for centuries. Euroamericans became aware of the springs during explorations conducted in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Beginning in 1858, emigrants along the Beale Wagon Road increasingly used Peach Springs as a rest stop and watering place. Events transpired during the post-Civil War era that had a profound effect on Peach Springs. In 1866, the U.S. government granted the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad a right-of-way to build a transcontinental railroad. As an incentive for construction, the federal government allowed the railroad company to select odd-numbered sections of land along the route. The Atlantic & Pacific Railroad (later known

John Osterman Gas Station, Peach Springs Arizona

John Osterman Gas Station, Peach Springs Arizona

The John Osterman Gas Station, located on U.S. Route 66 in Peach Springs, Arizona was constructed in 1929. The service station is an example of the types of privately owned commercial businesses that emerged along U.S. 66 and flourished due to the heavy use of the highway. As the automobile quickly became the preferred method of transportation, numerous auto-related businesses such as gas stations and repair shops opened along the nation's emerging roadways. As one of the most prominent east-west highways, U.S. Route 66 supported thousands of such businesses. The John Osterman Gas Station is one of several that operated in the small town of Peach Springs, which relied heavily on Route 66 traffic for its livelihood. The station is one

Isle Au Haut Light Station, Isle Au Haut Maine

Isle Au Haut Light Station, Isle Au Haut Maine

The Isle Au Haut Light Station is the next to last complex of its type established in Maine. Built in 1907 on Robinson Point at the southern end of Isle Au Haut Thorofare, the light was established here as a guide to the adjacent sheltered harbor. The 1902 edition of the Annual Report of the Light House Board carries a lengthy discussion about the need for a light at this site. Because of the rich fishing grounds along the lower East Penobscot Bay, the harbor at Isle Au Haut was found to be the most convenient harbor of refuge for fishing trawlers. Despite this clear statement of need, however, Congress did not authorize construction until June 23^rd, 1906, when it appropriated

Bryan Whitfield Herring Farm, Calypso North Carolina

Bryan Whitfield Herring Farm, Calypso North Carolina

The Bryan Whitfield Herring House is situated amid twenty-eight of the original 1,027-acre farm, one-and-one-half miles west of Calypso and four-and-one-half miles north of Faison in the extreme northwestern corner of Duplin County. The flat open fields, distant tree line, and dense declivity of nearby Goshen Branch serve to dramatize the lofty and imposing character and style of the picturesque Greek Revival plantation house, a stark silhouette in a limitless landscape. The landscape of the Herring Farm includes fields, groves, streams, and woodlands contained in a twenty-eight-acre section of a nineteenth-century tract of 1,027 acres. The land continues to be used essentially as it was at the time of the house construction, and the agrarian landscape conveys the visual character typical

William Wright Faison House - Friendship, Faison North Carolina

William Wright Faison House - Friendship, Faison North Carolina

The William Wright Faison House, a fine example of rural Greek Revival style design and one of an array of large residences built by related families of the county during the antebellum period. The house occupies a 1.2-acre site that is part of the original 3,500-acre plantation amassed by Faison before the Civil War. Situated on a broad, flat plateau above Goshen Swamp and the headwaters of King Branch, the house symbolizes the age of agricultural prosperity in the antebellum era, and preserves the ambiance of the big house standing as a beacon amid miles of well-tended fields. The high quality of design and craftsmanship exhibited throughout the structure likely are due to the influence the Wilmington and Raleigh (as of

Hendricks Head Light Station, West Southport Maine

Hendricks Head Light Station, West Southport Maine

The Hendricks Head Light Station is located behind a shallow rock ledge on the east side of the mouth of the Sheepscot River. The light station at Hendricks Head was established in 1829 as a guide to Sheepscot River and the important harbor at Wiscasset. Incorporated in 1802, Wiscasset enjoyed a brief period of prosperity in the early nineteenth century resulting in large part from shipbuilding activities at its deep sheltered harbor and maritime commerce. Its sister settlements on the Sheepscot, including Southport, Cape Newagen and Hendricks Head, were also keenly dependent on the local fishing industry and later in the century on tourism. Hendricks Head Light Station is composed of a square tapered brick light tower connected to a large

Magnolia Company Filling Station, Fayetteville Arkansas

Magnolia Company Filling Station, Fayetteville Arkansas

The Magnolia Company Gas Station building is one of the earliest and best-maintained examples of the drive-in station type form. Built in 1925, it is the first of its kind to be built of fireproof material, costing little over $3,600 at the time. Research indicates it is the only remaining structure of this defunct company in the area, one of the few contracted by the well-known Mr. Earl Bird of Fayetteville. The greatest significance of the Magnolia Company building lies in the fact that it has maintained the scale and grain of Lafayette Street's fine homes, providing a fit terminus to the axis of Lafayette and West Streets. The restoration has been done sensitively and the owner, Mr. Lloyd, has incorporated

Spearfish Filling Station, Spearfish South Dakota

Spearfish Filling Station, Spearfish South Dakota

Spearfish Filling Station was the first service station in Spearfish. Since its construction in 1923, it has continually provided goods and services to area automobile travelers. Spearfish was founded in 1876 in response to the emerging gold rush in the Black Hills. It immediately served as a support community for the area mines and surrounding ranches. Eventually, it grew to support one of the largest trade areas in the Black Hills. In the 1890s, interest in tourism in the region took root alongside the fluctuating mining and lumbering industries. By the 1920s, tourism was fast becoming a major source of income for Black Hills residents. The advent and ever-increasing use of the automobile was a prime element in that development. In

Soulsby Service Station, Mount Olive Illinois

Soulsby Service Station, Mount Olive Illinois

Soulsby Service Station, located on Route 66 in Mount Olive, Illinois, was constructed in 1926 by a local resident, Henry Soulsby. The station served both local and traveling customers with oil, gasoline and repairs. It is is one of Route 66's original gas stations and is the oldest one still in usable condition. Mount Olive is in southwestern Illinois, where the tall grass prairie starts rolling into the Ozarks. The area's rich coal deposits drew immigrants from England, Ireland, Italy and southeastern Europe in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Union organizers Mary Mother Jones and General Alexander Bradley are buried in a Mount Olive cemetery. John L. Lewis, who advocated the mechanization that made many small area mines unprofitable, is

Standard Oil Gasoline Station - Welco Gas Port, Plainfield Illinois

Standard Oil Gasoline Station - Welco Gas Port, Plainfield Illinois

With the widespread adoption of the automobile after the turn of the century, the American environment underwent many radical changes. The gasoline station was the first structure built in response to the automobile and tackled the problem of gasoline distribution as more Americans could afford the luxury of motoring. While it is probably the most widespread type of American commercial building, it has traditionally been ignored. The fate of early stations seems that of authentic 1840 general stores. The social contacts encouraged between attendants, local customers and cross-country travelers may have been what led Sinclair Lewis to suggest that working in a filling station was the best vantage point from which to study American culture. Since demand exceeded supply, early stations

Standard Oil Gasoline Station, Odell Illinois

Standard Oil Gasoline Station, Odell Illinois

The Standard Oil Gasoline Station was constructed in 1932 to provide oil, gasoline, and vehicle repair services to motorists along Route 66 as well as to the citizens of the Odell area. The village of Odell is located in northeastern Livingston County, between Pontiac, to the south and Dwight, to the north. The Odell area was rapidly settled during the construction of the Chicago & Alton Railroad through Livingston County in 1854. The land where Odell is located was surveyed and platted on August 10^th, 1856 by James C. Spencer and Henry A. Gardner. Spencer soon sold his half of the lands to William H. Odell, who was honored with the name of the town. Stores, warehouses, boarding houses, and hotels

Tchefuncte River Range Rear Light, Madisonville Louisiana

Tchefuncte River Range Rear Light, Madisonville Louisiana

In the war of 1812, the Tchefuncte River (also spelled Chefunti, Chifuncta, etc.) distinguished itself as a Naval Yard. Madisonville, just above the mouth, remains as a small shipyard and yacht harbor. A tower was erected at the mouth of the river in 1838 with a Fifth Order lens, its 10 lamps visible 11 miles. The lighthouse was rebuilt in 1857, about the same time as New Canal, across the lake. The 1886 light list shows the light on a 34-foot white tower, 38 feet above the lake and visible 11 miles. Some rebuilding took place in 1867. Also that year, the lantern from the lighthouse at Cat Island was shipped to Tchefuncte. The Cat Island tower had been damaged by

St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School, Chicago Illinois

St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran School, Chicago Illinois

St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran Church is located in a section of the Lower West Side known informally as Heart of Chicago. Located west of Damen, near Cermak Road (formerly 23^rd Street), Heart of Chicago was the location of the largest German community in the Lower West Side, which developed rapidly during the 1860s and 1870s. Several important institutions served the neighborhood's residents, including St. Matthew and St. Paul Roman Catholic Church, located two blocks to the south at 22^nd Place and Hoyne Avenue. St. Matthew Evangelical Lutheran Church was one of several churches established on the northwest and southwest sides of Chicago during the nineteenth century by the Lutheran Church of Missouri, Ohio and other States, now known as the Lutheran

Book Title Abandoned: Hauntingly Beautiful Deserted Theme Parks

Abandoned: Hauntingly Beautiful Deserted Theme Parks

Book Title Abandoned America: The Age of Consequences (Jonglez photo books)

Abandoned America: The Age of Consequences (Jonglez photo books)

Book Title Abandoned Places: A Photographic Exploration of More Than 100 Worlds We Have Left Behind

Abandoned Places: A Photographic Exploration of More Than 100 Worlds We Have Left Behind

Book Title Abandoned America: Then & Now: A Fun & Fascinating Look Revisiting America's Abandoned Places of the Past

Abandoned America: Then & Now: A Fun & Fascinating Look Revisiting America's Abandoned Places of the Past

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