That is the Eisenhauer Carriage Works at left behind the war memorial show at dedication day in 1923. It stands at the present location of the Northern Sun Gifts and obviously was put in place before the cottage-like garage mentioned on the last page was erected.

Buildings like this one were privately funded but in the dirty thirties these were replaced by small "service station" whose main aim was not the repair of vehicles but providing them with petroleum products. With the economy everywhere in bad shape,  Imperial Oil and Irving Oil began underwriting the construction of these new little places which were franchised out to local managers. I know of this, as my grandfather owned a huge barn-like repair "garage" on Water Street, Saint Stephen, N.B. and rented a station like that at right from Imperial ESSO. This was erected in front of the garage and they communicated with each other using the first private battery-operated telephone system at a time when the station's phone number was simply "146."

Crosslands had a competitor directly across Edgewater Street, again within sight of the war memorial. . This building is essentially an expanded version of the cottage-styled station. Hip-roofed it was built of brick rather than wood.  My grandfather's service stations at St. Stephen and St. George New Brunswick were built in this same period and were precisely the same in design.  The Imperial station did not suffer from having this high-end outfit across the street as they were better placed, on pilings over the waterfront, to supply fuel to ships in the harbour. In addition they may have had had a side-line in the rum-running trade.

When it went up, the town had only been incorporated for a dozen years and Mahone Bay had barely established its 30-member volunteer fire department The 1920s were never easy as the village had passed its Golden Age, but the 1930s were even worse as the Great Depression descended on everyone.