The former gas station on the corner of 10th Street and Onset Avenue used to look like it received as much love as a New York Yankees fan in Fenway Park.

There were weeds growing through the pavement and chipped paint on the walls. There were two rusted lamp poles sticking out of the concrete slab where the gas pumps once were.

"It was just raggedy and beat-up looking," said Charles Rohrbach III, a lifelong Wareham resident better known as Chuck. Rohrbach opened repair shop Chuck's Auto on the formerly abandoned corner earlier this year.

"There used to be an island for gas pumps," Rohrbach explained, "and it had just enough room for a car to get in there -- that was just an eyesore."

He repaved the driveway after taking out the old concrete slab, the worn out poles, and some trees that were crowding the side of the building. He put in new doors and redid the plumbing. He also freshened up the outside walls with new coats of sleek grey paint.

The new and improved product is a far cry from 25 to 30 years ago, when the old gas station was in operation. The 281 Onset Avenue property had a few brief owners after the gas station, but most of them didn't last very long, the 42-year-old Rohrbach said.

"There were a couple of people here and there, for 6 to 8 months," Rohrbach said. "Nobody every really lasted longer than that."

One of the businesses was a car detail shop, and another owner used the property to store vehicles. Mechanics tried to set up shop there, but to no avail, Rohrbach explained.

"It's tough to try and open a mechanic shop if you don't have a following," he noted.

Rohrbach said that working at auto repair shops in Wareham his whole life -- including Midas, Meineke, and Sam's Gas -- is part of the reason he has been able to survive on the corner. Most of his customers are regulars from before -- he has had only a few walk-ins.

Word of mouth plays its part, too, Rohrbach said. A customer will tell his cousin, who will tell his father, who will tell his brother, and before he knows it, Rohrbach is servicing 7 to 8 cars from a single family. Often he will service multiple cars from a single person.

That means that the parking lot is now almost always full, giving a whole new appearance to the corner which wasn't known for its business appeal.

And people have noticed.

"I've had everybody in the community come by and say, 'I'm so glad someone has done something with this place. It looks great,'" Rohrbach said.