This undated photograph shows Roy B. Hawkins Sr. (far right) in front of the Standard Oil service station where he worked in Winchester, Frederick County, Virginia. The two other men are not identified.

The photo is not a good one and has had a bit of manipulation to bring out some contrast and pretty up the upper left corner where the tree disappeared into an unintelligible blur.

The structure in the background almost looks like garage bays, but is actually the lattice-covered galleries of the building next door. The figure at right highlights the actual station structures, which consist of a roofed pump island and an office set at an angle to the island.

The Hawkins family moved to Winchester when Roy left his job with the Round Hill Orchard Company for opportunities in the oil business. The above photo was taken in this period.

The photo can be dated to 1928 or 1929 from family history. In late 1927, when Roy's daughter Audrey was born, the family lived in Jefferson Co., West Virginia. On 07 April 1930 the Federal Census placed the family in the town of Broadway, Rockingham Co., Virginia.

Evidence in the photo confirms this dating. The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey changed its name to Jersey Standard in 1930. In the far right of the photo can be seen part of an Esso advertising banner, detail at left. Esso was introduced as a brand name in 1926. This style of Esso logo appears to have been used between 1926 and 1933, after which the familiar oval logo was introduced. Compare the Esso sign in the detail to the images below.

The first image, a photo dated pre-1929, is of a filling station in Washington DC.¹⁾ The second image, where the Esso logo appears in the lower right corner, is from the back of a Standard Oil Company map issued in 1929.²⁾

Visible on the right side of the picture of the Standard filling station is an old stone house (see detail at right). Below is another picture of this house. This image, part of an archive of razed buildings kept by Preservation of Historic Winchester (PHW Inc.), is identified as of houses on North Braddock Street that were demolished in 1963. ³⁾ The photo appears to date from that time. The side of the service station office building is visible on the left of the image, and a swag of triangular pennants, once a common decorative device of filling stations, is hung between the house and the station. The narrowness of the side wall of the service station office suggests that it was a triangular plan building.

Next to the stone house, on the right side of the 1963 image, is another masonry domestic structure, and just visible on the extreme right is a taller brick building with a partially visible sign reading “Davi” and “Groce”.

At left is a photo of that brick building from the 1920s.⁴⁾ Both the shop window and the delivery truck parked in front bear the legend “B. F. Davis, Quality Groceries” (see detail at right). detail of B.F. Davis Grocery photoThis building is still standing, largely unchanged from the outside, and occupies addresses 19, 21, and 23 on North Braddock Street. Finding 21 North Braddock Street on Google Maps (see map below) shows that the two lots next to the brick grocery building, once occupied by the stone house and its neighbor, are now municipal parking. The lot adjacent to the old stone house lot is on the corner of North Braddock and West Boscawen Street and is also a parking lot. This narrow lot is the site of the old Standard Oil of New Jersey filling station where Roy worked in 1928-29.