The demise of the neighborhood gas station.

Driving a couple of the main roads home from work tonight it hit me. Actually I have noticed this for a long time.

At one time each little part of town had several independant full service gas stations. Lots of the buildings are still there but they are now "casinos", dry cleaners, and smoke shops. Some intersections had a station on each corner.

Now, I can count FOUR actual service stations left in this town of 70K. Everything else is a convenience store! Almost gone are the stations with two service bays. Places where the guy will check the little ol ladies oil and air pressure.

People had BRAND LOYALTY. They wouldnt just pop into whatever Quickie Mart was cheapest. Just like car brands, some folks were die hard Phillips, Mobil or Standard customers.

That scene in American Graffitti where Milner stops by the station to uncork his headers just wouldnt be the same in front of a 7-11!

My dad tells tales of shutting the station down (early 60s) at 6Pm and working on the racecar in one of the bays, guys stopping by to benchrace all evening.

Do yourself a favor and do a net search for "vintage gas stations". I did tonight and it brought a smile to my face. Lots of cool history that I dont think we will see repeated.

Ryans post last night of the pre-war color pictures got my mind going.

 

It's starting to get that way over here too, it's a shame.

Outback

 

There's one that's around the corner from where I lived. They still do driveway service (it is called a SERVICE STATION, afterall!)...petrol, tyres, windscreen. Freaked me out the first time I went to get out of my car and a woman was standing there at my door waiting to pump petrol for me! Took a while to get used to not having to do it yourself....but it was pretty cool to have a chat to people in such a usually sanitized souless environment. Was even better when the owners' daughter was there.

 

Yeah, and I for one sure miss 'em Tman. Worked at one of the last ones on my side of OKC as a part time job, in the early 70's. It was a Texaco franchise, 2 bay, with the usual bells & whistles. Had a '55 Bel-Air 2 dr hardtop at the time, and when things weren't busy in the evenings, my car was on the rack. Good memories!!

 

I can't think of a single station near me that has sevice bays. But when i think of those type of stations I go right back to my childhood. There was a Sinclair station around the corner from my family house. I was seven in 1960. My mom would send me there to get a loaf of bread. they had two bays, the hoses that rang the bell (we used to jump on them till we got chased off) a pile of old tires out back, the old truck full of rusted exhaust pipes parked alongside the station and a chest type pop cooler full of (no shit) Nehi pop. Oh yeah they had a small rack of bread (Wonder, of course) on the office wall. The two owners were brothers that looked like gorillas, or i thought so at the time. My older brother and his buddy took a glass quart canning jar there once to get gas for thier homebuilt go cart. The guy pumped them 4 cents of gas. think they'd do that now? ah the memories...

 

I grew up about 100 yards away form a Shell station. 3 bays and full service at ALL the pumps. McCumber's Shell in North Aurora, IL. I could walk over there to buy gas to mow the lawn with at the age of 10 and nobody every hassled me. I could go buy cigarettes for my Mom, no questions asked because they knew my Mom would kill me if I bought smokes and her brand was Virginia Slims. They had the coldest pop machine in town, so cold the stuff would get slushy when you pulled the pop top off (remember those?). They'd fill up the tires on your bike, oil the chain, and they even taught me how to use a pressure guage so I didn't blow out my inner tubes. Man that was loud. I even made my first phone call to a girl from their rotary dial pay phone. It's now a Quickie-Mart joint with all the fake roses, air fresheners, and soda pop you could ever want ( not that cold either), but no character and that wonderful scent of a SERVICE station is long gone. Long gone like so many other fine things of my youth...

 

A close family freind worked at one of our last family run service stations until he retired a couple years back. They just tore it down to build a Safeway gas kiosk. Anyway, my dad was doing his usual Saturday afternoon visit for a Coke when out of the automatic wash bay he hears a couple kids screaming bloody murder! Little brats snuck off and triggered the carwashas they stood in it! Their dad was dressed up and had to run into the wash cycle to pull the screaming/wet kids out!

 

Try this link.Not only a ton of vintage gas stations,hotels and other points of interest in Michigan's hitory,but also a complete list of every race track ever to have existed in Michigan.There are a ton of cool old racecar pics in that section. http://www.waterwinterwonderland.com/gas.asp

 

I worked in a Mobil service station 25 years ago. There was always a chance to pick up extra hours, since a lot of the part time help was less than reliable when it came to showing up for work (I once worked from 6am to midnight because two guys in a row didn't show!), and my car was never cleaner--run it in after the day's work was done and wash/wax/vacuum it, then put it up on the lift and hose it off underneath. I think all of us wore our spark plugs out by sandblasting them in the old AC plug cleaner once a week! The station was located on the edge of a residential area in a 120K population city, and you got to know the people in the neighborhood well enough to set your watch by when they came in. It's a convenience store now---pity that today's youth can't know the simple pleasures of being a gas jockey for fun and (small) profit.

 

my first real job was at an archies full service station not to long ago 1986. we did things like they did back then. 10:00pm was car time working on them out side in the summer night air friends stopping by or just blowing horns and doing burn outs at the light on the corner a pack of marlboros and a glass bottle pepsi it was heaven

 

Yeah,I can remember those service stations all too well.I used to deliver papers to half a dozen stations on my paper route on Macleod Trail SW Calgary;used to pick up my papers at a Royalite station.My dad used to work part-time at Knox's Esso across from the Knox church in Calgary.He used to wear a Esso "uniform" complete with the nifty hat with the Esso logo on it.How many of us Canuks remember Murrey Westgate on the CBC,Hockey Night in Canada,and other commercials,in his Esso get up?I've still got a bunch of gas station scrounge that my Dad acquired all those years ago.I also used to hang around Dale Armstrongs place when I was a kid,remember Dale of AA/FD fame.He had a shop/gas station a block from me;he was running a A/MP '56 chevy at Shepard Raceways.Ah the memories!!Thanks for reminding of that.

 

You guys are killin' me...almost brought a tear to my eye.
I was born in cleveland OH, but was moved down to Hollywood FL(just north of Miami) in 1970. I too had a teenage job at a full service station, it was a Gulf station at the corner of hollywood Blvd. and 46th .AAHH the memories, I had just built my Big Block 69' camaro, THE fastest car in town 12:00 on street tires and mufflers, drive to the track ( Miami- Hollywood Speedway R.I.P.). I worked alone 4-12pm and thought it was the coolest job, All my friends would come by (both male and female ) and B.S. and talk race cars.

Anyway, I love old stuff and gas station memorabilia is killer.

As a side note:
My father (who will be 81 in march) dropped out of school in the 9th grade, He and his best friend (red) bought a Texaco station (1945-6) together and ran it by themselves, Ive got some great stories, he still tells them, and Ive heard them 100 times before, but I still listen intently. He also went on to race midgets and sprint cars professionaly in the 40's. Got a lot of pictures and cool stuff of his.

Sorry for the rant , but ive had a couple , and this thread brought back the memories...

 

oh man does this ever bring back the misty past. I used to manage one of the last "ARCO" service stations here in Tacoma wa. It was there that I met my wife . The owner let me think I was the manager. (long hours and not much pay. L.O.L) I was "in charge of" 12 pumps and three bays. I talked the boss into sponsoring two of my buddys race cars at a local short track, the late great Spanaway Speedway."only if you can get me some free tickets and pit passes!" geeze! all that effort just to use the tire machine One of the best memeorys I have have is scaring the daylights out of the doctors secritary next door with a REALLY big posi-trac burn out! she thought we was on fire over there in the service bays! but the best one of all is proposing to my wife of 15 years over the service desk! I left the place yaers ago and now its just another quickie mart

 

it really sucks but i think there is 1 independent (ultramar) left. the oil compaines are pulling out, i started working at a texaco when i was just outta high school in '89. the station change locations in '91, owner sold it in 2000 and they closed it in 2002 (i left in 01 and now it's flattened). i really miss that place, they let me work on "old" cars all day and night (station was 24hr), had alot of people stop by because most of the cars were parked on the point (major cross street). that's where i got my "oldtimer" name, besides the cars i worked on i used to wear a green dickies work shirt/pants with a 50's and 60's texaco patches on then (differenet shirts) and when i went outside to help some one i had a green texaco hat from the 40's i would put on.........yea i know kinda dorky, but i liked it. even my biz cards had the 60s texaco logo on it. when we had an inspection once the reps gave me a texaco shirt with the 60's logo on it. after i left i was looking into getting a station, all the reps from various gas companies said that most are going to pull out of the back rooms and redo them as mini marts. a really sad time for americana...........

for all the younger ones.......
the first pic is the 60's logo
the second is what my uniform looked like (got hot working on cars in the summer)
third is just a pic of an old station.

 

I lived in a village just north of NYC until I was 12 and then my dad's company transfered him and us to California in 1970. 12 years later Mom, dad and I went back for my brother's wedding.
One day Mom takes the rental car to the old Texaco station she used to use. The owner, Ted Knassel, comes out to fill 'er up and mom says "Hello Ted". He blinks and says "Hello Mrs. G. I haven't seen you in here for a while. Did you move away?"

I just about fell out of my seat.

If my scanner ever works again I'll post station phots I've taken over the years.

 

also old car dealerships. the san diego pope hartford dealership (till 1914) is going to get razed soon. it doesn't look like much but the history is there. the man who owned it pasted away and his scum sucking fucking piece of shit shirt tail relatives are going to destroy it because the land it is on is worth more than the building! even though he tried to save it for years (and set up a trust) i fucking hate people sometimes. greed sucks.

 

Funny thing, most of our old dealership buildings are stil standing! The oldest is still a car lot, built in 1926, I willl try and shoot a pic

 

i went to one the other day and got the full service...
some ole' guy came out and did it... made me fell bad
but it was still cool... (this was in newport pedro)...
alot of people are stealin fuel lately due to the price
so i think its gunna start to go back to the old days
it'd be cheaper to hire some kid a few hours a day
than to lose a tank o gas a night......
just a thought.

 

One thing that kinda put the nail in the coffin of some of the smaller Mom and Pop Gas stations was the EPA coming after them for the underground gas tanks, the fixup was really expensive even though they was not leaking. My Dad had one and sold it before the EPA started to get really Nasty. Thanks Big Goverment.

Dawg

 

some of my best sevice station memorys happened back in 72' when i was ten years old. id ride my 5-speed down to the gas station and check the air in my tires, it was so cool to pump it myself! then i would ride back and forth over the hose that made the bell ring, soon the guy would come out and tell me to stop. id say okay but im gonna need a stp sticker for my banana seat! a couple of days later the sticker would be worn out and i would have to repeat the whole deal again! lol!

 

We don't have anything like you guys are talking about here anymore...and unfortunately I'm too young to remember the stuff that was (30). I really have to wonder though, that with all the shitty service you have come to expect from quickie-marts, that if you opened up a real, honest to goodness old-time service station in an area with none, if you'd make a killing just because people thought it was neat? Eventually word would have to get around...soon you'd be giving bus tours of the place!

 

...or cleaning windshields in the summertime.....
if i have to explain,you never did it.

 

I worked for a company that used to sell products to the Mom & Pop gas stations back in the late eighties. When the EPA came in and started all the restrictions on the tanks the old timers could not afford to dig them up and out of business they went. Not long after we went out of business too. It is a shame that this is how government "helps" us by putting the little guy out of business. I do remember having to show my Grandfather how to put gas in his car etc...and he was in his eighties. The gas station he had used forever had closed down . He always had a company car and always went to the service station.

 

The Shell station I worked in in Birmingham Al in 1955 is still standing. I don't think its still a shell. lots of memories there.

 

I shouldn't post this cause I can't remember where or the name of the station is.... maybe sombody on here knows.

I have been there twice, once in 2002 and once in 2005, both trips from Texas to Ohio, to the GGshow in Columbus.

I think it's Ill. or Missouri.... Anyway it looks like a gas and go type place with about 10 or 12 pumps and a tiny office. Everything is covered with a roof that raises in height towards the street. No garage or anything.

You (or at least I did) pull up and start to get out, when a young teenage boy comes up and ask if your filling up. I look around and there are 4 guys running around pumping gas, all high school age. They make your change right out of their pocket like a car-hop, clean your windshield and chat a bit.

And the gas is the same as everybody on the street. Let me tell you the place is jumpin'. I guess people like getting the extra service, and I can only imagine it gets bizer come winter time.

Should be more like that...

 

Yes, I've driven through your area a few times, and have noticed that I see things that seem to be extinct in upstate NY.

 

Know a man in Simpsonville, SC that opened up an old station (Dannys Fill'em and Fix'em) near the center of town. A little 2 bay, 4 pumps (2 full service and 2 self service), restrooms and an about 8x12 office area filled with old time stuff like glass oil jars, old coke bottles and loads of old model cars. When you look at his station it makes you feel like you were back in the 50s. He does a jam up business, mostly with the over 60 folks, but he's always busy. He has one full time mechanic and two attendants. Has real good deals on tires and the tire machine is always going. Gas is a few cents higher than the stop&gos, but then again they don't greet you by name. I've got a little corner stop&go I've gone into at least three times a week for the past six years and there aint a damn soul in there that could tell you my name, they know what I drink and smoke but not my name.

 

I can look back now and savor jst how damn cool it was to grow up in a small town. When I was in high school in the 80s I worked at an Amoco at the junction of RT 66 and RT 16 in Litchfield Illinois pumping gas and checking oil. It was right behind the The Gardens restaraunt where I met my wife. Last I heard, the restaraunt was torn down and I think the gas stastion was sold. I haven't been home since the 90s and after hearing how much it's changed, I don't really know if I want to. I like it just the way it is in my memory.


Sitting here reading this is making me all nostalgic. Does anyone else remember the old Red and White stores? We had one a few blocks from my house growing up. Fresh cut meats and a decent little selection of stuff you needed, not like the junk and fluff they sell today at convienence stores. My grandma used to have me ride my bike down to get stuff when she was baking and put it on her charge account. Thems were some good times.....................

Nik

 

It all got fucked-up when they quit giving out free air. (Pssssss ~DING~ Pssssss ~DING~ Psssssss ~DING~)

When I was a kid, I'd take my bike to "check my tires" just so I could hang around the Standard station and watch 'em work on cars.
The bathroom there was full of parts, so the guys pissed in the floor drain. I thought that was so cool.

Gas stations always had the greatest stale candy in their vending machines, too, not microwave chili-dogs and cappachino.
I'm trying to find the old Ford gumball machine that was in that Standard station... or one like it.

The Zephyr station was the only one in town that had Ethyl, when I was in school. It made a difference in my coupe, so there's your brand loyalty, right there.

I remember, too, that the only guys that had snow plows, back then were the gas station owners. They seemed to take care of their particular neighborhoods. At least, that's how it was around where I grew up...





JOE

 

Stations will go to Pre-pay pumps before they will hire anyone. Its a sad demise, none left in our town.(Full service stations)