TV has reruns, why not newspapers? How many times have you seen the same episode of the Andy Griffith Show, M.A.S.H., The Golden Girls?

This week’s column appeared 990 newspapers ago. April 19, 1989, gas was $1 a gallon and you could earn 10 percent interest on a six month CD.

Columns, unlike cheese or wine, don’t improve with age. But this one recalls a time and a place you grew up in. So this week drink from the cup of “remember when.”

You don’t need a remote to watch this rerun, just your imagination. So return with me to April 1989....

Gas stations used to pump gas, not sell groceries
Cabbage Williamson planning to purchase ‘perfect’ gas station
Greetings. I bring you glad tidings of great joy. Robert Allen Cabbage Williamson may soon become the owner of Parson’s Shell Station, providing he can get the money from Donald Trump and no-money-down Arnette
Cabbage has been married and two car payments behind all his life, but things are looking up. This would be the largest financial deal the county has ever seen with the possible exception of the time Billy McCutchen sold a white mule at Nesmith. Cabbage hasn’t decided yet what improvement if any he might implement if the deal goes through. Leave it alone, Cabbage. You can’t improve on perfection. Diane, Cabbage’s lovely spouse, has been kicking around the idea of replacing he car life with a boutique and the beverage cooler with a discotheque. Since he only direction Cabbage can go is straight up, a second floor might be the answer. He could rent it out for weddings, bar mitzvahs, hog killings, turkey shoots, Easter egg hunts, revival meetings, debutant balls, peanut boilings and scavenger hunts.
Since the county is searching for a location for a landfill, this might be ideal spot. If Cabbage could get what the paid for that DSS building, he could buy the courthouse. Should Cabbage add a second floor, it would necessitate an elevator, and Mr. Williamson’s highly trained professional personnel would have to go back to school to learn the highly complex skill to operate this piece of advanced technology. Fortunately, USC has just added Elevator Operator 101 to their curriculum. This course designed for incoming athletes is a nine-year course where football players can master the unbelievably intricate complexities of operating an elevator. We mention the course runs nine years. This is based on one year of Proposition 48, two years of red shirting, three years in jail, and three years playing time.
Parson’s Service Station got its name from the late Frank Parsons. C.G. Bass of Santee Oil Company built the station for Frank in 1952. Frank and Cabbage come from the same mold. It’ not the sign on the front door or the product you sell- it’s the service that keeps the customer coming back.
If Frank Parsons was alive today he would be 76 years old, and I wonder what his reaction would be to today’s modern gas stations. When Frank ran a station, it was a place where you fill the car and drain the young’uns, not a shopping center for chicken, pizza and yogurt. Frank Parson ran a gas station. His customers were his friends. Frank believed friendship was like a bank account. You can’t keep making withdrawals without making deposits.
Many of today’s stations are drug stores, restaurants and grocery stores. But just try to get your windshield cleaned or the air in your tires checked.
Frank was born and raised in Suttons. His wife Letita was from Hemingway. They were married July 15, 1940 in Greeleyville. Frank originally managed a station owned by T.R. Owens, where Gene Blacks station is located today. The original building was moved to where Johnny Ward operates his store today on Hwy. 52.
The oldest station in Kingstree is the old modern service station on Academy and Mill streets across from Preacher’s Drug Store. Originally operated by Hugh D. Gamble. When it first opened in the late ‘20s, the gas pumps were operated manually. When Frank Parsons became ill in 1969, Snowball McKenzie operated Parsons’ Service Center. Cabbage went to work for Snowball in 1971 after he came home from Vietnam. He took over the station in 1976. Today, Frank’s wife, Mrs. Letita Parsons, works with Snowball at his nursery off Hwy. 52.
When I started writing this column, it was going to be devoted to Cabbage and Frank. This was before I stopped by Sam’s Shoe Shop and started talking with Billy Prosser and Lamar Johnson. I casually asked them if they remembered any of the old gas stations in Kingstree, and the people who ran them. I hit the jackpot. I wrote a check for 1,000,000 memories. Billy and Lamar cashed it. It was like opening a door on people and places, some long gone. Lamar remembered paying $1 a gallon for gas in Kingstree in 1943. I didn’t ask where he bought it, but in spite of rationing, obviously gas was available for a price during World War II.
What follows is an unofficial history of gas stations in Kingstree. Sometimes when you try to look through the window of yesterday, it can be like looking through a glass someone has just been drinking buttermilk out of. But for a moment let’s drink from the cup of sweet memories. Names like D.D. Lovett, Willie Munn, H.T. McGill, John Mixon and Cliff Moore.
Once upon a time there was a gas station next to Buddy Williams’ dry cleaners, where a finance office is today. Over the years it was operated by Crane Nexsen, Bill McClary, and Heyward McCants. John Mixon ran this station in 1947. D.D. Lovett came to Kingstree in 1936 to run the Sinclair station where the Exchange Bank is today. Hill Northington and Reed Tanner ran the Sinclair station later. Willie Munn took over January 1, 1950. The station closed on May 16, 1973. Willie also ran the station where Kentucky Fried Chicken is located today. Francis Bradford also operated the old station where the Exchange Bank is now for a short time.
Earl Cherry had a station on the railroad track across from the Piggly Wiggly. Leroy Dennis had a station where Marshall’s Liquor Store is today. Harry Cahn was the Oldsmobile dealer in Kingstree, and he was also the first man in Kingstree to sell Amoco unleaded gasoline. The women of Kingstree used to buy this gasoline and use it to remove the wax off their floors. Ed Hanna had a station across from Harry Cahn’s Auto Dealership. Jack Hydrick’s station was on Black River across from US 52. Leonard Burgess ran a station and garage near the old Confederate cemetery on Hwy. 52.
Fluitt Kirby had a combination gas station and grocery store. E.G. Robinson ran a read route before he started operating a service station on top of the hill across from F.W. Thomas. Bill Horton took over the station from E.G. Billy Prosser’s daddy, H.L. Prosser, ran an Esso station where H&R Block is located today on Longstreet. Later, Jack Lybrand’s brother-in-law Willie King ran a short-order restaurant there.
Mr. Harry McKissick ran a furniture store and gas station on the Warsaw Highway near Holy Woods. Briggs Walker operated a station that was later taken over by Ollie Byrd and later by Jack and Lib Burrows. Henryhand ran a gas station on the old Lake City Highway. Mitch Osmer built the station next to where Edsel McCutchen sells insurance today. Ed Hanna, Joe Wheildon and Carol McCants all ran that station at one time.
Jimmy Kennedy’s daddy was the Studebaker dealer in Kingstree. He also sold gas on Longstreet where the Trading Post is today. The station Bonny Boy McKenzie runs was originally a Crown station and was once operated by Roe Burgess. Henry Wheeler and John Britton built the old station across from Santee Electric. Willard Wheeler also ran this station at one time. Ed Mishoe took it over in 1948 and ran it until 1964.
When C.G. Bass built the Carolina Shell Station in 1948, John Mixon was the operator. He lived upstairs over the station, and ran it until 1964. John came to Kingstree from Hampton County in 1937, and married a local girl, Florie Epps. They will celebrate their golden anniversary on December 22 of this year. Randall and Tom Overby used to sell tobacco curers.
All of the employees John had over the years; Freddy Singletary is the only one still living. Henry Allen operated a station across from Gene Black on Hwy. 52. Zeno Vause ran a filling station across from where Stuckey’s Parts is today.
Tommy Truluck, who grew up delivering The News and Courier and Evening Post in Kingstree and then graduated to repairing radios for Troubleshooters, operated the Gulf Station where Kentucky Fried Chicken is from 1968 to 1972. From 1972 to 1979 he ran a station where Tommy Thomas’ print shop is today. Tommy then returned to the station at the corner of Longstreet Street and Mill Street, where he stayed from 1984-86 before moving to Hwy. 52 where he is located today. Joe Watson and a man named Flannigan also operated the station where Kentucky Friend Chicken is located today.
Today, paved roads are as common in Williamsburg County as pollen, barbecue and controlled substances. But the roads were not paved in Kingstree until 1922. To some of us, that doesn’t seem that long ago. But the young think that in 1922 the ultimate weapon was a bow and arrow. Some of us remember when a radio was a piece of furniture in the living room, not a squawk box you carry the street like an audio suitcase.
A few years ago we marveled in this space at the number of grocery stores we once had in down town Kingstree. It’s hard to believe that in a distance of approximately one mile from the bridge on Black River to the top of the hill there were once 13 gas stations. Once there were more gas stations on Main Street in Kingstree than there are eating-places on Hwy. 52 today.
Putting together a column like this is like trying to put together a 50 years old crossword puzzle. Sometimes you can’t find all the pieces. But we’ll like to express our appreciation to Billy Prosser, Lamar Johnson, Sam Cottingham, John Mixon, Thomas Gamble, Mrs. Frank Parsons, Ms. Bernice Tharpe, and Robert Allen Cabbage Williamson for their help.