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    • Home
    • VIEWS AND NEWS
    • ABOUT
    • OUR MISSION
    • Contact Us
    • GASTONIA HISTORY
    • GASTONIA HISTORY II
    • GASTONIA HISTORY III
    • GASTONIA HISTORY IV
    • FAIR USE PRINCIPLE
    • SPINDLE CITY SCENES
    • SPINDLE CITY SCENES II
    • LOST AND ENDANGERED
    • EPHEMERA
    • GASTONIA FAMILY ALBUM
    • GHOST SIGNS
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    • SIGHTS AND SOUNDS
    • "GREASY CORNER"
    • JOURNAL
    • TIME TRAVEL
    • PRODUCTS
    • RETAIL PARTNERS
  • Home
  • VIEWS AND NEWS
  • ABOUT
  • OUR MISSION
  • Contact Us
  • GASTONIA HISTORY
  • GASTONIA HISTORY II
  • GASTONIA HISTORY III
  • GASTONIA HISTORY IV
  • FAIR USE PRINCIPLE
  • SPINDLE CITY SCENES
  • SPINDLE CITY SCENES II
  • LOST AND ENDANGERED
  • EPHEMERA
  • GASTONIA FAMILY ALBUM
  • GHOST SIGNS
  • THE LAY OF THE LAND
  • MEMORIES
  • TRANSPORTATION
  • SIGHTS AND SOUNDS
  • "GREASY CORNER"
  • JOURNAL
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VINTAGEGASTONIA.COM

VINTAGEGASTONIA.COMVINTAGEGASTONIA.COMVINTAGEGASTONIA.COM

WHERE OLD GASTONIA LIVES!

WHERE OLD GASTONIA LIVES! WHERE OLD GASTONIA LIVES!

VINTAGEGASTONIA.COM Through the Ages: A Photo Gallery of Historic Landmarks and Buildings

OUR MISSION AND PHILOSOPHY

"Hold fast to the good things, and publish them near and far." These have been the watchwords of Trenton Creative Enterprises since its philosophical establishment as The American Egg in 1971 and before.  
The mission of Trenton Creative Enterprises is:  


  • To celebrate the history of  Gastonia, North Carolina;
  • To increase general knowledge of the city's heritage, free from caricature or over-generalization;*
  • To locate, record, and, when possible, aid in the preservation of the small, obscure pieces of that past before they are lost to future generations;
  • To remind the general public of the original purposes and significance of structures, sites, signs, etc., especially those threatened with removal;
  • To educate regarding the importance of place in the maintenance of civilization; and
  • To aid like-minded persons and organizations in the achievement of similar goals.

TCE 


*Don't believe everything you see, hear, or read about the history of Gastonia. There are popular half-truths being peddled to the many who do not know better. We have resources to provide more insight into the Gastonia story for those who are interested. Send us your questions. 

 Temple (later Center) Theater Marquee, 100th block of West Main Avenue, October 19, 2003. 
Lost March 2009. 

 

“Take proper care of your monuments and you will not need to restore them. A few sheets of lead put in time upon the roof, a few dead leaves and sticks swept in time out of a water-course, will save both roof and walls from ruin. Watch an old building with an anxious care: guard it as best you may, and at any cost from every influence of dilapidation. Count its stones as you would jewels of a crown; set watches about it as if at the gates of a besieged city; bind it together with iron where it loosens; stay it with timber where it declines; do not care about the unsightliness of the aid; better a crutch than a lost limb; and do this tenderly, and reverently, and continually, and many a generation will still be born and pass away beneath its shadow.


“…I must not leave the truth unstated, that it is again no question of expediency or feeling whether we shall preserve the buildings of past times or not. We have no right whatsoever to touch them. They are not ours. They belong partly to those who built them, and partly to all the generations of mankind who are to follow us. The dead have still their right in them: that which they labored for, the praise of achievement or the expression of religious feeling, or whatsoever else it might be which in those buildings they intended to be permanent, we have no right to obliterate. What we have ourselves built, we are at liberty to throw down; but what other men gave their strength, and wealth, and life to accomplish, their right does not pass away with their death; still less is the right to the use of what they have left vested in us only. It belongs to all their successors. It may hereafter be a subject of sorrow, or a cause of injury, to millions, that we have consulted our present convenience by casting down such buildings as we choose to dispense with. That sorrow, that loss we have no right to inflict.”


John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, Chapter VI, “The Lamp of Memory,” Sections XIX and XX.

 East  Main Avenue at South Oakland Street looking west, September 1972. 

 “Time counts and keeps countin', and we knows now finding the trick of what's been and lost ain't no easy ride. But that's our trek, we gotta' travel it. And there ain't nobody knows where it's gonna' lead. Still in all, every night we does the tell, so that we 'member who we was and where we came from....And we lights the city...for all of them that are still out there. 'Cause we knows there come a night, when they sees the distant light, and they'll be comin' home.”

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (Movie), 1985, Savannah Nix (Character) speech. 

and in conclusion...

"THE HERITAGE OF THE PAST IS THE SEED THAT BRINGS FORTH THE HARVEST OF THE FUTURE."  At the entrance to the National Archives Building, Washington, DC, spring 1976. 

     “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 

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