Raleigh newspapers.
The concession stand nar-rowly
escaped the Great Fire
of 1934. Lester Newell and
his wife, Mickey, bought the
stand that same year after
running it for a number of
years.
The stand had a coun-tertop,
tables and chairs,
and fold-up sides in case it
rained. Eventually, perma-nent
walls were added so the
stand could remain open in
the winter months. Lester
and Mickey also put up a
“Newell’s Soda Shop” sign,
as well as advertisements for
Budweiser and Buttercup
Ice Cream.
The late Bill Creasy Jr.,
Wrightsville Beach’s unof-ficial
historian, frequented
the concession stand in the
late 1930s and ’40s as a
young boy and teenager. He
remembered walking to the
stand with his friends and
trying to decide between
a Baby Ruth and a comic
book. Back then, fountain
drinks and candy bars cost a
nickel, and a milkshake was
just 15 cents.
Creasy explained that
while Lumina Pavilion was
the hangout for kids on the
southern end of the beach,
Newell’s was the place to be
in the middle of town.
BY MICHELLE BLISS
NEWELL’S
began as a
popular open-air
concession
stand at Station One on the
trolley car line owned by the
Tidewater Power Company.
Back in the 1920s, visitors
paid 25 cents to ride into
town on a beach car. The
concession stand was their
first stop.
Originally owned by
Bud Werkheiser, the wooden
stand included a soda foun-tain
that served Coca-Cola
along with milkshakes and
malts. Customers could
also order a sandwich and
read the Wilmington or
24
WBM june 2020
Wrightsville Beach
residents fondly
remember
Newell’s
the variety store that
sold everything from
fishing poles
to women’s fashions
“We all hung out there and
grew up there,” he said in
2009.
Times were different then.
Parents felt at ease letting
their children gallivant freely
around town with friends. And
there was something whole-some
about a family-owned
business like Newell’s.
Linda Brown, a Wrightsville
Beach resident who
lived on the beach for five
years as a child and came
back in the summers as a
teenager when her grand-mother,
Levi Murdoch
Braswell, bought a house
on Crane Street in l962,
feels the same way.
COURTESY ELIZABETH KING
S E L L I N G
M I C H E L L E B L I SS