Shell-Shaped Shell Station

After opening Shell Oil #1 on Reynolda Road, Joe Glenn and Bert Bennett worried about name recognition, so they came up with a brilliant idea: a service station shaped like a giant seashell. They designed it themselves and applied for a patent. The first seashell-shaped station opened at Burke Street in June, 1930, and within months there were eight in all—seven in Winston-Salem and one in Kernersville. The original scallop-shell–shaped service stations were built for $5,000 apiece by builder Frank L. Blum.

One of the shells still stands at its original location at the corner of Sprague and Peachtree Streets. In the 1990s, Preservation North Carolina restored the shell, the gas pumps, and the wooden trellised shelter where cars could be washed or serviced in the shade. The station was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.