Foster's (Foster's Service Station)
Foster’s Service Station was listed in the Green Book from 1947-1955 as “Foster’s” under “Service Stations” in Pinehurst.1
A 1941 advertisement for Foster’s Service Station asked potential patrons: “Saving Gas?” The solution was to “use ESSO products for longer mileage.” The owners of Foster’s Service Station are not known, though local entrepreneur George Nathan Foster may have been tied to the service station.2
Some Black-owned businesses that gave their location as Pinehurst in advertisements were actually in Jackson Hamlet, a small, African-American enclave just outside the town. Many of the African Americans who lived in Jackson Hamlet, including George Nathan Foster, worked in the resort town of Pinehurst but were not permitted to live there or patronize its businesses due to racism and segregation. Pinehurst was wealthy and well-resourced. Jackson Hamlet, despite its close proximity to the city, had its boundaries set outside of the city of Pinehurst and could not access amenities or financial resources available to those within the city limit. This practice is referred to as municipal underbounding; Jackson Hamlet continues to be impacted by municipal underbounding today.3
George Nathan Foster was born in 1892 and was raised in Iron Station (sometimes called Ironton), a community in Lincoln County. He graduated from Lincoln Academy in Kings Mountain. Foster moved to Pinehurst in 1917 when he accepted a position with the General Office of Pinehurst and later worked as a janitor in Pinehurst. He purchased thirty acres of land in 1928 to develop a housing community for African Americans and leveraged his connections to become the first resident in Jackson Hamlet to have a water connection. He sold water from his spigot to other residents of the community. Foster passed away in 1958.4
Essay by Brandie K. Ragghianti, 2022
Notes
1. Victor Green, 1947 Green Book, 65; Green, 1948 Green Book, 63; Green, 1949 Green Book, 57; Green, 1950 Green Book, 63; Green, 1951 Green Book, 54; Green, 1952 Green Book, 54; Green, 1953 Green Book, 54; Green, 1954 Green Book, 54; Green, 1955 Green Book, 54.
2. “Foster’s Service Station” (ad), The Pilot (Vass, NC), August 8, 1941, 6, accessed from http://newspapers.digitalnc.org; UNC Center for Civil Rights, “Invisible Fences: Municipal Underbounding in Southern Moore County,” August 2006, UNC Inclusion Project, http://www.uncinclusionproject.org/documents/invisiblefences.pdf; R. Irving Boone, Ed., Negro Business and Professional Men & Women: A Survey of Negro Progress in Varied Sections of North Carolina (Wilmington, NC: self-published, 1946), 32.
3. 1900 United States Federal Census, Ironton, Lincoln County, North Carolina, digital image s.v. “George N. Foster,” accessed from www.ancestry.com; UNC Center for Civil Rights, “Invisible Fences: Municipal Underbounding in Southern Moore County,” August 2006, UNC Inclusion Project, http://www.uncinclusionproject.org/documents/invisiblefences.pdf; R. Irving Boone, Ed., Negro Business and Professional Men & Women: A Survey of Negro Progress in Varied Sections of North Carolina (Wilmington, NC: self-published, 1946), 32.
4. George Hatlan [sic] Foster, December 11, 1892, Pinehurst, Moore County, North Carolina, U.S. World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918, accessed from www.ancestry.com; UNC Center for Civil Rights, “Invisible Fences: Municipal Underbounding in Southern Moore County,” August 2006, UNC Inclusion Project, http://www.uncinclusionproject.org/documents/invisiblefences.pdf; R. Irving Boone, Ed., Negro Business and Professional Men & Women: A Survey of Negro Progress in Varied Sections of North Carolina (Wilmington, NC: self-published, 1946), 32; George Nathan Foster, December 2, 1958, Pinehurst, Moore County, North Carolina, U.S. Death Certificates, 1909-1976, accessed from www.ancestry.com.