Construction of a new Texaco station (1953)

Mattoon Texaco, 1901 Champaign Av, Mattoon Ill

 

Two things that you notice are people working hard with hand tools, no power tools, and secondly, no one is fat in that video.

I remember my Dad and Grandpap building our entire house and barn with hand saws, hammers, shovels, and not one power tool. At 85 my Grandapap would chop down a tree and have it cut up with a cross saw and axe by the end of the day.

There is a lesson here somewhere.

Don

 

Thanks for posting....unbelievable clarity and color, I loved all the cars in the background....not a power tool to be found, except for the "gin pole". I don't know how they got anything done without hard hats and floresent vests....do you suppose the tore down the old station when they were done...?

 

My dad built houses for a living in the '50s and early '60s. In those days there were no special crews. Two or three guys would do everything but plumbing and electrical, from building the footings to the finish carpentry and painting.

They cut every board and drove every nail by hand.

When I was in trouble I stayed away from his right side because all that hand work gave him a strong right hand. When he grabbed me with his right, I stayed grabbed!

 

Great Video.

When watching old films like this, I always dream of a wizard turning up and granting me a wish, which would be to give me all the cars, trucks and vans that are shown in the film, in the very condition they were back then.

 

Cool Thanks!!!

 

...wrong, there's a brick/cement block cutting machine making dust in one early scene.
What a great look back at a great time in America.

 

Awesome!

 

The trailer place is 1901 Champaign, they have a bad scan of the original station on their Facebook page.

 

Like everyone else, I thought the video was fun to watch. I got a real kick out of the guy at the end of the video getting out of his Shoebox while the attendant checks the fluids, etc.. He looks so proud of his car. Not many people today have that kind of excitement or fondness for their "new" car.....and honestly why should we???

Thanks for sharing!

 

Saving this for later.

 

My granddad built an entire house in the 40's and never used a power tool of any kind. That always fascinated me...

Cool video, thanks for sharing!

 

Just a point the gas station tax on gas paid for those roads. So no gas station no roads the gov never built a thing without taking it first

 

Born and sorta raised near Peoria, Illinois. It's a amazing the members and things I'm finding right here about Illinois. Even on the Old Trophy girls thread I found another site Peoria Old timers Racing Club. Very interesting and brought back lots of memories. We may have lived in the corn fields but there were and are a lot of car guys in Illinois.

 

Good video. Had a good chuckle at the guy holding up the front of the ready mix truck, right around the 8:50 mark.

 

That was a great video. I loved the Texaco COE.

 

Awsome! Reminded me of the days when I pumped gas at a station. Believe it or not, it was a JC Penney gas station in the mall parking lot.

 

What an awesome video.
I've heard that people who study history get MUCH more valuable information from day-to-day letters and diaries than they do from official accounts and government records of the period. You know what happened in the official reports... you know HOW it happened in the diaries and letters.
The little private movies like that one are a treasure trove of information... hand-saw carpentry and moving cement with shovels as was stated... no motorized float to finish the concrete--a guy with a 18-foot pole smoothing it off one p*** at a time.
And the detail and quality work of the guy setting the concrete blocks on the wall...
How 'bout three guys breaking concrete with 15-pound sledge hammers? There were portable industrial compressors and air-powered jack-hammers back then... I know, my grandfather had one on his construction crew... and he made specific note of it in his advertising! Smaller companies relied on three guys with 15-pound sledge hammers, or didn't bust out the heavy equipment for a small job like busting up a gas station apron.
And as someone else said: No fat guys. Not a single one was shown.

Imagine a world where you pull into a gas station, and you're not in a rush... you actually have time in your day to let a guy fill your tank, wash your windows and check your oil.

I prefer to listen to and read the actual words he said, as opposed to the spin of his apologists:

"There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet."

That's like saying Ryan didn't built this site, or I didn't build my swap meet, or Bob Petersen didn't build his publishing empire because someone else invented electricity, car parts and paper.

-Brad

 

Glad you all liked the video. I thought it would go down well when I found it.

David

 

that was great thank you ! some things shouldnt of gone away

 

Now that there is a historical do***ent for sure.
Thanks for posting

 

Get away from this political **** before this thread gets closed.



Awesome video. Makes me miss my Grandpa.

 

I live in a "Battleground" state and thanks to political ads, I get my fill of political **** EVERY time I turn on the TV. This site is one of the few sanctuaries I have from that kind of ****.
Cool video, but I'm curious why they are using construction methods from the 30's in 1953. My Dad is a 97 year old contractor and by the 50's he had power tools, jackhammers etc.
Hell he still uses some his power tools from the 50's !

 

A friend did a lot of building work for me a while back, I was surprised by the fact that he did most of his sawing by hand but he said it was easier than continually setting up power tools.

In my work I often find it easier to do things by hand than to spend time setting up a machine.

David

 

Building the gas station was interesting but I wonder why it was filmed in the first place. The owner must really have been proud of his business. I found the shots of the period cars much more interesting. Also, you gotta love the attendant trying to find the car's gas cap at 5:17-5:20.

 

Enjoyed the video. Thanks for sharing!


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+1000 !