INTERURBAN RAILWAY DAYS IN OLD GASTONIA

"The glory of the interurban is captured in this photograph taken on Franklin Street [Avenue] in Gastonia on October 29, 1937. The track  turning in the left foreground goes up to the Gastonia Station."
From Piedmont and Northern, The Great Electric System of the South, by Thomas T. Fetters and Peter W. Swanson, Jr. Published by Golden West Books, San Marino, California, 1974, pp. 72-73.
The photograph is by Robrt Mehlenbeck (1913-2005), who was known primarily for his prolific photographic railroad work in the Midwest.
To the right of the train stand, among other buildings, City Garage, Caldwell Drug Store, and Summerow Furniture Company. To the left is the future site of Tony's Ice Cream.

     James B. Duke’s electric-powered Piedmont Traction Company (later the Piedmont and Northern Railroad) was established in Charlotte in 1910 and soon after began grading right-of-way for the line from Charlotte to Gastonia. In the spring of 1911, seven houses north of the Modena Mill were removed to make way for the tracks. One of them was the R. D. Martin house, home of an early postmaster and publisher of the Gastonia Gazette. The Martin house was significant because it was one of the first dwellings built around the original Gastonia Station in East Gastonia.

     As brick masons from the J. A. Jones Construction Company of Charlotte were completing the freight and passenger depots at the southeast corner of East Main Avenue and Broad Street, the “interurban,” as it was called, made its first run from Charlotte on May 21, 1912 to a temporary station at the Modena Street Crossing. This inaugural train was filled with 150 dignitaries, railroad officials, and local businessmen. The tracks had not yet tunneled under the Southern Railway main line. This tunneling would be necessary for trains to reach the freight and passenger station and to connect with the single track down the center of Franklin Avenue, which carried both the local streetcars and freight trains.

Gastonia celebrated the Fourth of July in 1912 as it had never celebrated before.

     That day witnessed, in addition to other usual festivities, the first passenger service of the Piedmont and Northern Railway’s from Charlotte to the new Gastonia station located on Broad Street. A crowd of from 25 to 30 thousand people (transported by interurban, automobiles, or foot power) surged through the streets of the city. An “airship” flew overhead as a parade made up of 100 floats, automobiles, and other units made its way from Broad Street to Main Avenue, west on Main to Loray Boulevard, Loray to Franklin Avenue, and back to South Street. The Loray School won the prize for the best school float.