WSTB

Kowabunga Buffalo Bob

A great story on Christmas at Brown Rogers Dixon in the 1940s/50s.

http://www.mastgeneralstore.com/blog/ma ... ston-salem

A good reminder: This is a great time to visit Mast General Store! When I lived in the mountains, I remember buying a large number of gifts for friends and family there. It is an amazing place for Christmas shopping! It's also a great place to find something "North Carolina" to send to family in northern states.

Winston-Salem promotional film, circa 1943 . . . . in COLOR:

Winston-Salem Teachers College Homecoming Parade - 1955

The cameraman was standing in the 300 block of Church St. near the corner of E. Fourth. (Smith's Lunch was at the SE corner . . . RJR Factory No. 8 at the NE corner is seen in the background.)




Singer, actress Ethel Waters (1896-1977) performed at homecoming and was crowned Miss Alumni. She appears briefly in the video above.



She is seen passing the Charles H. Jones building at the NW corner of Church & E. Third. The building burned in 1960. Winston Tower occupies the site today.

A nice article: "Do you remember these Winston-Salem department stores?" in the WSJ with photos of department stores from the 1960's and 1970's - https://www.journalnow.com/gallery/feat ... 73d.html#1

I'm looking for a youtube video that was floating around a few years ago. I may be wrong but I think the video was of a restaurant in the old Nissen Building at RJ Reynolds and it had a cowboy/western theme? I believe the story was broadcasted on a TV show in the 80s either PM Magazine or something similar. Anyone remember it?

It was JoAnne's Chili Bordello - located in the basement of the building at E. Third & Fogle Sts. The restaurant, part of a small chain named for longtime Jacksonville, FL restaurateur JoAnn Perschel (1950-2009), featured corset & garter clad waitresses serving [pretty decent] chili in melon rind "bowls" with plastic utensils, since there was no dishwasher. It operated here briefly - circa 1982-'83 - arousing concerns among certain conservative evangelical types.

I was unable to locate the local video - I know I've
searched for it before.

Ha! Thanks. Even more glorious than I remembered.

I've found a number of old songs and videos, over the years. If these are popular on the forum, I'll post more of them.

A North Carolina travel video from 1965, showing Old Salem and other attractions across the state:

I love this kind of stuff!! Keep em coming!

I’d like to share a personal story with everyone. My dad and 2 of his brothers were small time homebuilders who worked on one house at a time for their living. Starting out when I was a very small child, I would go to work with him and help him as much as I could and this continued until I graduated from high school. During their lives my dad and his brothers built 28 homes, 2 small apartment buildings, and a small commercial building and they did some remodeling for friends. It was this background that gave me my lifelong interest in home building and in architecture. In my whole life, I’ve never lived in a house that I didn’t design myself and I would hire a contractor to build it according to my drawings and specifications. This is one of the reasons I enjoy this forum so much. Also, when I was a small child my parents took me and my brother to Old Salem one day and I fell in love with the place because it’s architecture was so unique. For someone who was so young and had not traveled as much as I was fortunate enough to do later in life, Old Salem left a lasting impression and I still love the place today. My mom told me later in my life that I absolutely loved the street lights the very first time I saw them. So fast forward to the time I was building my very first home. I wanted to put up a really prominent light at the corner of the house at the front walkway and she was helping me look through catalogs to try to find something to use. While we were researching, she remembered my reaction to the lights in Salem when I was a child. Without telling me anything, she went to Peter Blum’s shop (PW Blum & Sons) at that time on Trade Street. He had hand built all the street lights in Old Salem and he had 3 left over. She told me he initially said he wouldn’t sell them because he was keeping them for spares for the city. My mom remembered how much I loved them and she was always a very strong and persistent person. She told me she went back to his shop a total of 5 times and somehow convinced him to sell her 2 of the 3 spares. One for me and one for my brother. I don’t know how she did it, but she was one of the most persistent people I’ve ever known. I still have the sales receipt from Blum. After she bought the lights, she told me she had a surprise and she met me at the house I was building and surprised me with the Salem street light! Those lights are painted black, but they are constructed of solid copper and their construction is flawless. Mr Blum told my mom that only Duke Power had one of his lights and we were the only people outside of Old Salem that had one. I’ve had the light in front of my house since my mom gave it to me that day. Where I live now, the lamp post I had was getting a bit worn and I was afraid it might fall, so this fall I took it down and I found a woodworking shop east of Raleigh that could build me the custom light post I wanted. I took a photo of a light in Old Salem and I made them some drawings with measurements and after some discussions they made me a new lamp post from Alaskan spruce (which should last a very long time) and I plan to rewire the light with a LED light and put it back up this spring. That light has glowed like a beautiful candle light at night and greeted me and any visitors since 1986 and I can’t wait to get it back up. I feel like the house isn’t complete without that streetlight to greet me when I return home and drive up my driveway.

In the article zalo referenced in the recent post about the Brookstown Ave sale, there is also a short video about some of Winston Salems restaurants from the past. It's pretty cool and here is the link: https://journalnow.com/business/local/f ... p-homepage