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TRENTON CREATIVE ENTERPRISES
Where Old Gastonia Lives!
On Gastonia, On Gastonia. We Are All For You!
Harvey Franklin Forbes on his hay wagon in Downtown Gastonia around 1900.
A Civil War veteran, he ran a whiskey distillery and a 100 acre farm on Forbes Road.
(Courtesy of Al Forbes, Harvey Forbes' great-grandson.)
Hagan Oil Company advertisement that appeared in the 1960 West Avenue Presbyterian Church Cookbook.
In this photograph contributed by Lana Shaw, relatives stand in front of a house on West Sixth Avenue in the Firestone Village in the mid-1950's. Left to right are her father, Ross McLeymore, her uncle, Colin Rogers (who lived in the house), and her uncle, Efton James.
Boyd's Grocery, located at the southwest corner of East Franklin Avenue and South Broad Street, circa 1930. Submitted by Joe Friday, Greenville, N.C., originally of Dallas, N.C. Mr. Friday's grandfather, Brady Ratchford, stands second from right.
Gastonia High School Band in a parade on West Main Avenue heading west past Rustin Furniture Company circa 1942
(at the beginning of World War II).
Note the military presence.
Rev. Earl Armstrong's Gospel Tabernacle, located on West Airline Avenue just west of the intersection with North Trenton Street,
circa 1940.
Smith Barber Shop, 111 East Main Ave. c. 1930.
This 1928 photograph shows four of the five daughters of Herman and Nancy Glover on Railroad Avenue in the Trenton Mill Village at the rear of what became the West Main Avenue parking lots of the Sears store (closed). The photograph was taken by an itenerant photographer at the corner of North Hill Street and Railroad Avenue. The Southern Railway main line in the background leads toward Uptown Gastonia. Left to right: Vera Glover (James), Marion Glover (Williams) holding Blanche Glover (Ellis), and Helen Glover (Stallings/Phillips) standing on the ground holding the reins.
This 1944 photograph of the Glover sisters on West Main Avenue was taken in the front yard of the eldest sister's home, Elsie Glover Maples, in the Trenton Village. Left to right: Blanche Glover (Ellis), Elsie Glover Maples, Helen Glover (Stallings/Phillips), and Vera Glover (James). The road in the background is West Main Avenue leading to the Trenton Mill and to Downtown Gastonia. The houses on the near side of the street stood on the later locations of the West Franklin Avenue Holiday Inn and the Sears Roebuck Store.
June Davidson Sisk shopping Uptown around 1957. She is shown walking east on Franklin Avenue away from the South Marietta Street intersection. Behind her stands the sparkling new National Bank of Commerce building. To her left is First Presbytrerian Church before its relocation to the East Side of the city (1961). The site is now the location of Wells Fargo Bank (formerly Wachovia). (A screen capture from an 8mm home movie submitted by Mrs. Sisk's daughter, Deb Lewis Ogden.)
FROM A RECENT E-MAIL MESSAGE
"My mother was an English teacher at Gastonia High School from 1941 to 1947. Her name then was Miss Lena Sink. Early on she lived at 815 S. York St. & later at the Armstrong Apartments [later known as the Marietta Apartments]. She met my dad there in 1946 who was in the Air Force & stationed in Charlotte. My mother taught high school for 39 years and she was 95 years old when she died recently. Here are pictures. I'm her son, Ralph Proto."
Minnie Sanders Davidson in her beaver coat at her home on South Vance Street, circa 1925. In the background is the west side of the Loray Mill. Submitted by her granddaughter, Deb Lewis Ogden.
Roy Davidson and his sisters at their home on South Vance Street beside the Loray Mill circa 1924.
(Submitted by Deb Lewis Ogden.)
A Gastonia Gazette clipping featuring the 1910 Cadillac once owned by textile pioneer George W. Ragan as it passed Marietta Street on Franklin Avenue in the Grand Cotton Festival parade, June 1941. Note in the background the former home of Mrs. E. C. Wilson and an Amoco service station that had built in its front yard. Both were demolished for the erection of the National Bank of Commerce building in 1956. (Click here to see more about the Wilson home and the National Bank of Commerce building. See Robert Ragan's book, The Textile Heritage of Gaston County, North Carolina, 1848-2000 for the story of the Festival.) The Grand Cotton Festival was held 1938-1941 and again in 1946 after World War II to showcase the area's textile manufacturing industry and to celebrate the emergence from the Great Depression. (Submitted by Deb Lewis Ogden.)
Page from Textiles Review (published by Textiles Incorporated, later known as TiCaro) featuring the second shift spinning department of the Myrtle Mill (Bessemer City Road) around the mid 1950's. Submitted by Lana Shaw. Her uncles, Efton and England James are included in the lower photo.
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