About Shell Service Station
In Winston-Salem, the Shell logo escaped the sign and swallowed the entire gas station. The surviving Shell Service Station on East Sprague Street is a bright yellow concrete building shaped like an enormous scallop shell.
R. H. Burton and his son Ralph built a series of shell-shaped stations around Winston-Salem in 1930 for Quality Oil Company, a local Shell distributor. The design transformed a familiar corporate symbol into novelty architecture that motorists could recognize instantly from the road.
The building used a wooden framework and wire to establish the curved shell form before concrete and stucco created the finished surface. The front opening became the service area, while the ridged exterior made the whole little building read as one oversized shell.
Eight shell-shaped stations were built in the area, but this is the only survivor. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 and later restored. Visitors can appreciate the exterior from public areas without treating the property as an ordinary operating gas station.