The first true “gas stations” started appearing in North Carolina around the early 1920s. Before this time, drivers primarily purchased gasoline from general stores, hardware stores and other businesses that also sold kerosene. As time marched forward, gas stations across the nation became more than just a place to get fuel. They were landmarks symbolizing the automobile’s growing importance in American culture, representing progress and a new era of mobility. Major oil companies competed for customers by establishing distinctive corporate logos and slogans to build brand loyalty and to help consumers identify their stations.
In the 1930s, eight Shell Oil service stations with gas pumps located in front of the structures were built in Forsyth County – seven in Winston-Salem and one in Kernersville. Bert Lester Bennett, Sr. and his nephew, Joseph Henry Glenn, Jr., owners of the Quality Oil Company (a local marketer of Shell Oil) designed the stations in the unique shape of a giant scallop shell as an innovative advertising strategy to attract motorists.
The patent for these one-story, 18-foot-tall, three-dimensional novelty buildings was granted in November of 1930, setting the stage for construction by the Frank L. Blum Construction Company. Making a scallop-shell-shaped gas station was not easy! First, the office and bathroom were boxed in, then surrounded by a bent wood and wire framework over which a concrete stucco was applied. These novelty shell-shaped architecture service stations were designed to stand out, and they certainly did!…