Friday, May 31, 2019

Marshall Nichols and Charro Drive-In Burros


The first manager for the Charro Drive-in Theater was Marshall Nichols who shared these photos over twenty years ago for an article I wrote for one of those Studies in Brownsville History..." books published by UTB/TSC.  The photos were not printed in the book.  Marshall is seen here on the scooter he used to get around large parking lot for everyday maintenance tasks to make sure drive-in would be ready for each night's double-feature.  His first day on the job came on May 5th, 1949.  These photos were probably taken in the early 1960s after he had been manager a number of years.

Theater Managers were always expected to find creative ways to promote their theaters and Nichols came up with plenty of ideas using local businesses.  He met Will Cabler,   a retired Texas Ranger with land up the street from the theater on Paredes Line Rd.  Cabler had a bunch of burros he was willing to sell so Nichols had special giveaway promotions so the animals were given away as prizes.  Keeping burros was a bigger chore than say, small monkeys in a cage so he brought a bunch of small monkeys from William Abraham "Snake" King who was a wild animal farmer who had been selling animals from around the world since the 1910s.

Marshall Nichols daughter with burros.  The family lived in a home that was built-in the screen tower.  Theaters provided swing sets for kids which was a great idea at the time.  It allowed kids to spend their energy on the playground while the drive-in filled with cars as the sun went down.  

Another example of how many local businesses partnered with The Charro to promote business.

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

c1935 - Shell Filling Station on W Elizabeth and 2nd St Digi-Photo Restoration

Javier R. Garcia
 That's Ethyl on the left 
A Sanborn map for Brownsville Texas – October 1926 indicates there was a “Filling Station” on corner of Stillman (now 2nd St) and (N Elizabeth) or what we refer to as W Elizabeth St.


A Sanborn map for Brownsville, Texas 1930 September indicate our filling station in the photo is single-story rectangular brick building with open service area similar to previous lay-out and a drive-through “Auto Washing” service within between two brick enclosed structures.  My guess is the big circle symbols with “GT” indicate storage tanks for grease, oil or fuel (i.e. “grease tank”).  
This photo was scanned from an approximately 2” x 3” photo from the Brownsville Historical Association archives.  The intention was to one day enhance the photo using photo editing software to get a better look at it.  Someone wrote “1930 – A.A. Burlingham’s filling station on Elizabeth.  This is now Landreth’s Lock Service” on the back of the photo but it was likely built in 1930 and photographed about 1935.  County records were not accessed for actual verification.

The corner-lot gas station includes a pump island and signage.  There are also oil cans stacked on a display stand and window display.  It has all the amenities of a modern full-service station including well-lit canopied service island with free air/water and restrooms.  The right interior part of building may be office and store where Shell products such as oil lubricants might be sold and the left area looks like a service bay where vehicles could be garaged and serviced.

The vehicle behind the pumps resembles a 1935 Plymouth Sedan which is the evidence that the photo may have been taken later than “1930” and on behalf of “A.O. Reece” who was still listed in the 1940 phone directory (Brownsville, Texas and other Rio Grande Valley Cities – Telephone Directory March 1940 – Southwestern Bell Telephone Company – page 8)  as “Reece A O serv sta 204 W Elizabeth … 9513” but that was the only directory resource available to me (1917 and 1948 directories were the only available years nearest to 1940).   A “Field Guide to Gas Stations by W. Dwayne Jones” (availableonline) states that Shell (Royal Dutch Shell founded in 1907) first entered the Texas market by 1929 which allows us to assume it took Shell a year to reach the farthest southern point in Brownsville, Texas and gives us a closer date when the station was built but not when the photo was taken (as the misleading information on back seems to indicate).  The building formation is a simple box form with two canopies, the second open area being the car wash area referred to on the clip from the 1930 Sanborn map. 

The “Field Guide…” didn’t offer much more information.  The Spanish tile seen on this building was frequently used in southern states from California to Florida during the era.  The raised pillars and multi-colored bricks make this a much more attractive building than the common gas station forms we are used to seeing. 
The right side has been lightened which brightens tiny specs and scratch marks which will have to be removed.  There’s also what appears to be small brick stairs and white scratch on pillar with signage which is indistinguishable and will be changed in a revised version.
Two additional sections have been lightened with similar defects becoming more pronounced.  The automobile appears to have the hood opened which was how a car was regularly checked and maintained at these old stations.  Note the large older style gas pump in the center.  

Additional enhancement and vertical brickwork really bring out the details of the building which is the main focus of this digitized photo restoration but rather than be satisfied with the “faded” it also occurred that with all the resources available on the internet it would be challenging to search for “parts” to bring out additional details of signage on the building and pumps and try to find out what kind of automobile it is and try to find a photo of the same car from the same angle!  Additional frustration occurs when you find a “usable” photo (same car parked photographed from rear left angle) it has to be large enough to be compatible with large resolution image.  
It would probably be easier to physically find the same kind of car, get permission from owner to take a lot of photos from same angle with the right part of the hood opened [a million in one chance?] to use as a substitute model than it would be to find an hi-resolution photo of a 1937 Plymouth sedan, parked in the same angle with the right half of its hood open on the internet.  Another car was found as close to the same body style and from similar angle but it had to be skewed every which way to “fit” over the original car in photo.  We’ll see how it looks a few slides later….
Vertical brickwork, while much of it is in dark areas, was replaced by copying, cutting, resizing and skewed to match size and perspective of vertical brickwork of the building.
The large pump was removed and bricks were used to “fill-in empty space.  A restored pump was found online and prepared as a substitute.
Clear glass on pump was made transparent so bricks of building can be seen through it.  The same technique will be applied to the car.  
Pump labels were inserted.  This was done to illustrate the typical corporate brand Shell pump fuel stationed on an island to supply “Shell [regular], Super Shell and Shell Premium” brands. 


The windows can be revisited at another time to add additional details and interest but at this point the work might be overkill or better in the hands of an expert so it was decided the back “service bay” window needed to be darkened rather than risk overdoing or making it obvious this photo had been altered.
After the substitute automobile was skewed to fit shape of original auto, its headlight was pulled back and “hidden” behind the gas pump but the “new” car gave a tight close fit at other point and the original headlight was kept.  The gas station pump “island” for curbside service was also emphasized.  Additional signage was also filled-in.  
Here is the original again for comparison.
This isn’t a photograph that really lends itself to colorization so we won’t be seeing it again in that form unless I want to make an attempt at reproducing every nuance of multi-colors of brick (the cover image at top is an “overkill” version of the photo).  The main objective was to emphasize the brick-work on this li’l gem.  The rest of the work was to just dress it up a bit without allowing all the extra accessories to take over the originality of the photo or the building itself.

If you found this blog after being one of 13K friends on the now defunct “Brownsville Station” Facebook page thank you for checking this blog.  Feel free to comment “anonymously” in the comments section if you have any questions or comments but do not want hassle of creating an account. 
The building as it looks today.  The fuel pump island is still there.