{"nrhp_refnum":"97001221","name":"Beam's Shell Service Station and Office, (Former)","other_names":["C. Grier Beam Truck Museum"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"117 N. Mountain St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Cherryville","county":"Gaston County","state":"NC","lat":35.37983964700004,"lon":-81.37985601399998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1997-10-17","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Transportation","Commerce","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A small Spanish Mission style former gasoline station and office at 117 N. Mountain Street in Cherryville, Gaston County, North Carolina, built around 1930, with its concrete pump island and two visible-type gas pumps.","why_significant":"It is presented as an exceptional, highly intact example of early 1930s Spanish Mission style service station architecture. It is also tied to C. Grier Beam, who ran the earliest office of what became Carolina Freight Carriers Corporation from the station's middle room starting in 1934.","narrative":"Built around 1930 on a corner lot one block north of Cherryville's main commercial street, this former Shell service station is a small cross-gabled building in the Spanish Mission style. It has stuccoed walls over a brick water table, arched windows, and a roof of Spanish-style metal tiles. Out front stand a concrete pump island and two old visible-type gasoline pumps topped with seashell-shaped glass globes. The station retains the typical features of its era, including a corner site, a setback wide enough for cars to pull up on either side of the pumps, and a paved lot. It also has a connection to trucking history. In 1934, C. Grier Beam used the middle room as the office for his young trucking business, which grew into Carolina Freight Carriers Corporation and was the nation's sixth largest trucking firm at his death in 1992. The company moved out in 1938. Today the building serves as the gift shop and entrance to the C. Grier Beam Truck Museum.","period_of_significance":"ca. 1930 to 1938","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Mission","criteria":["B","C"],"status_note":"Now serves as the gift shop and entry point for the adjoining C. Grier Beam Truck Museum; the building is in near-original condition.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:57:49.453536-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/83/7203/47720383/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/97001221.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/97001221/0d30f129b6-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/97001221/0d30f129b6-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Upstateherd","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Former_Beam%27s_Shell_Service_Station.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Upstateherd</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Former_Beam%27s_Shell_Service_Station.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"16000560","name":"Cherryville Downtown Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/north-carolina/cherryville-downtown-historic-district-16000560/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47720383","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam%27s_Shell_Service_Station_and_Office","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4876168"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/gaston-county/beams-shell-service-station-and-office-former-97001221/"}