Published: October 25, 2009 08:52 pm      

Friends of Frog Level Yacht Club gather for store-moving ceremony, memories

FROG LEVEL, Va. — A few members of the Frog Level Yacht Club raised their bottles and/or cans of beer high in a salute to the end of one era and beginning of another, as the family of one of Tazewell County’s most loyal and most interesting native sons received a memorial resolution from the state he loved.

Thomas E. “Ed” Bowling Sr., opened the Frog Level Service Station in 1932, and applied for a tavern license the following year after the repeal of prohibition. Ed Bowling ran the gas station/tavern for years, then handed over the keys to the store to his son, T.E. “June” Bowling Jr., when he became of age. Although he removed the gas pumps in 1996, the store continued to serve as an esoteric hang-out of sorts for an eclectic mix of characters ranging from lawyers to laborers and doctors to dreamers.

“This is obviously an important intersection,” Martha Hurst, chairman of the Historic Crab Orchard Museum board of directors said she delayed the start of a brief ceremony in front of the station until the din of passing cars and trucks died down enough for the 25 souls attending to hear what was being said. “This is an important occasion today,” she said.

Not long after Ed Bowling opened his station/tavern, a friend of Jack Witten — Bill McCorkle — put Frog Level on the map — literally, in a whimsical creation the itinerant cartographer (McCorkle) drew to make some money. McCorkle gave “Ed Bowling’s Frog Level Beer Garden” a special place on the 1930s-vintage map, and while McCorkle went to California for a job as an illustrator with Walt Disney, the Bowlings — first father, then son — capitalized on the power of the frog to promote the prosperous business.

“We’ve seen peacocks come by here, saw bears go by, wolves and a bobcat,” Ann Biggs said. “I learned how to tan a deer hide here. The Frog Level Service Station was known worldwide. (Most people) remember the photograph of the man standing in Antarctica, wearing a Frog Level Yacht Club sweatshirt.”

The Frog Level Gas Station was the last grocery store/gas station in Virginia that could serve beer without having a kitchen on the premises to cook meals, State Delegate Dan Bowling, D-Tazewell said prior to reading the joint House-Senate passed by the Virginia General Assembly on Jan. 31, 2008. Hurst had explained earlier that Bowling’s family wanted to wait for the formal presentation of the resolution.

“June was a deeply intellectual person,” Del. Bowling said. “He always had the door open and always welcomed people into his store. We had some wonderful conversations here.”

T.E. Bowling Sr.’s will stipulated that June Bowling could operate the station through his lifetime, but at his death, the property was to be sold and the proceeds distributed among his heirs. Tazewell attorney Fred Harman, the Tazewell Rotary Club and Ratcliffe Foundation committed funds to relocate the station from its present Frog Level location to a location across from Fort Witten. The museum plans to restore it as an exhibit and rent it out to private functions.

“We hope this will be good for the community, and hopefully, it will encourage a few others who have old stores to consider finding a way to preserve the history,” Clara Bowling Perkins said after the ceremony. “We’ve been here a long time, and a lot of people have good memories about Frog Level. We’re trying to save those memories.”

Perkins said she was humbled by the memorial resolution. “My father (June Bowling) was extremely proud of the fact that he was from Tazewell County and proud of his Virginia heritage.”

Jim Biggs, a member of the museum’s Frog Level service station relocation committee wore a blazer with the Frog Level Yacht Club emblem on the pocket. “There were only 25 of these patches made,” Jim Biggs said.

According to a press release from Crab Orchard Museum, the store will be moved later this fall.

— Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com