Petrified Attraction

On Sunday, I got out of my typical weekend evening routine of lying in bed, flipping channels and occasionally getting up to feed the stomach. At 4:30 I got into the truck and motored west along US 380 to Decatur, which is a half-hour drive from Denton. The sun was beginning to start its dissent as I stopped at a historic roadside attraction outside downtown.

 

A special friend met me where we shot the breeze about life as cars and trucks breezed along Business US 287, formerly a major route through town.

 

I am a over a half a century late, but the spirit remains.

According to Roadside America, E.F. Boydston built a gas station in 1927 as the automobile was reaching more Americans. Eight years later he decided to cover its exterior with chunks of petrified wood. He eventually covered the walls of his next-door cafe

 

and motor court as well (One of the motor court cabins was reportedly rented by Bonnie and Clyde a couple of weeks before they died). The cafe closed in 1964 while the cabins lasted less than 10 more years while the filling station pumped its last ounce of gasoline in 1989.

They eventually passed into the hands of Nancy Rosendahl, one of E.F.'s grandchildren. She and her husband Jim, a retired nuclear engineer, told Roadside America, "we didn't have the heart to tear it down." They spent the next decade restoring the entire complex to its "circa 1945 glory." Jim Rosendahl has turned the gas station office into his own private office (the gas station no longer sells gas), and wanted to open the motor court as offices for rent, however, it stymied because the cabins weren't wheelchair accessible.

Open the door to the Whistle Stop Café around 10:30 weekdays and one will hear a chorus of laughter, mouths watering and grills ssssteaming up some burgers. On Sunday evening, however, the winds of time provided the soundtrack to the historic attraction.