Old Driftwood

Old Station Driftwood Texas, 8 x 10
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This morning, Plein Air Austin met in Driftwood, about twenty miles southwest of Austin. This gas station is one I recently drove by, so I was glad PAA had a paintout scheduled here. While painting today, a former local, who was attending a church fair on the property I was painting from, came up to chat. It turned out he was a third generation Driftwood resident who knew all about this Texaco station. To him, this was once a johnny-come-lately. He remembered that, as a boy, before it was an old gas station, it was Driftwood's post office. Learning this might explain the sign overhanging the front steps, which reads,"Driftwood Elev. 1045. " Signs like this were typical identifiers at old postal stops. On the other hand, it might be that as gasoline was first becoming available to rural America, some old post offices in the narrowest of wide spots in the road might have taken on double duty for some time. I wonder if this was one of them.