Local Collection

While on a local location scouting job, I dropped by neighbor Robbie Coble’s home in Grays Chapel, North Carolina. Robbie is an avid collector of old service station and store memorabilia, and has gone as far as building replicas of an old general store and a Texaco service station on his property. The store houses old fashioned merchandise, while he uses the station to display several vintage cars. A walk in Robbie’s backyard is like a walk in time.

(Photographs copyright 2011 by Dan Routh)

Old Store

(image copyright 2011 by Dan Routh)
Sometimes you stumble across an image when you least expect it. We were driving along the old Lincoln Highway in Belle Glade, Iowa working on an agricultural shoot a while back when I saw this old store literally covered in antique service station signs. Turned out to be a veritable museum of odd memorabilia run by an elderly gentleman named George Preston. He was an interesting character who regaled us with his stories about being on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He even had an old x-ray machine for viewing your feet when fitting shoes.