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U. S. 19 at Main Street, New Port Richey.
This photograph appears to have been taken in the early 1950's. Shown here is a new Standard Oil Filling and Service Station,
still standing (after many facelifts) on the northeast corner of Main Street and US 19. It is now the Cash Register Insurance Company.
To the left of the gas station is the "Highway Fruits" stand, on the corner of Bridge Street and US 19. Caldwell Banker/F. I. Grey
now occupies this site. At the time of this photograph, "West Main Street" did not exist.
The house in the lower left of this photograph was then a private residence, and is now the site of Hess.
This information was provided in 2005 by David A. Henry.
In a 2007 email, Carolyn Fowler Hogue wrote: “The private residence noted in the picture across from what was Jimmy Grey’s Standard Station belonged to my family from 1946-1952. F. Franklin Fowler, Dorcas, Carolyn (me), Emily, and Bobby lived there. After we sold the house (to Henry Dingus, Jr., I think) and moved out to Massachusetts Ave (which wasn’t paved at that time), gypsies moved into the house for a while before it became the Anchor Inn . . . and much later the Hess Station was built on that site. At the time we were living in that house on US 19, my dad was employed as a printer at the New Port Richey Press, owned by Hugh Osborne and his family. Daddy taught Kenneth Trufant the printing trade there. “When we first moved to the house in January, 1946, the road bed for US 19 had been prepared, but the road wasn’t paved. The section of Main Street from the bridge to US 19 did not exist. I walked to school across the dirt road just to the north of where Grey’s fruit stand was later built to the River Road on the west side of the river to get to the bridge to town . . . attending Pierce Elementary School. “Jimmy Grey and Wilson Fowler (my uncle) were partners in the Standard Station in town prior to their leaving for military service for WW II (Uncle Wilson was in the Navy . . . don’t know about Jimmy). When they returned after the war, they built the Standard Station on the corner of Main and US 19, and soon afterward split the partnership. Uncle Wilson owned the station in town and the adjacent property ‘til his death in the late 80s, and I believe his family still owns the property.” Photo courtesy of Coldwell Banker - F. I. Grey & Son, Inc. |