History Old Gas Stations Today-Derelict or Period Restored.

Rte. 66

 

Great thread, I’ve seen many of these along RT66 in my travels.They sure bring you back to a simpler time in road tripping through the country in the past.
Thanks for all the photos and descriptions,

 

The Cucamonga Service Station in Rancho Cucamonga, California was built in 1915, serving motorists for over a decade before US 66 was established. It operated all the way until 1971 when it closed and went dormant. Thankfully, it survived and achieved landmark status. The station was restored and opened as a mini-museum in 2015. They're currently raising funds to expand by rebuilding a lost garage building in the back.

 

San Diego, Ca.

 

Glenrio is an abandoned little Route 66 community on the Texas/New Mexico border.

 

Rte. 66 midpoint Adrian, Texas 1,139 miles to Santa Monica. Ca, same 1,139 to Chicago,Illinois.

 

Not necessarily derelict or period restored but continuously operating since 1937 and where I got gas yesterday.

 

Jeff, looks like a real gas station

 

Yep, they let me pump my non-ethanol gas before I went inside to pay and talked to a real person about when the owners dad bought the station in 55 and it came with a 53 F100 that is sitting inside the shop. They did accept a credit card payment but I suspect cash would have been preferred.

 

Here is a "then & now" of a real photo postcard of the junction of "State Hwy. 113 & U.S. 66, Braidwood, ILL." circa the early 1950s. The Google photo shows that the Rossi's Sinclair service station, Weitz Cafe, and Rossi's Motel buildings are still in use as different businesses.
Rossi's Sinclair at 100 N Washington St. was built by Peter Rossi in 1939 on the new alignment of Route 66. It originally sold Sinclair Oil gasoline. It is built in Art Deco style which flourished between World Wars (1914 - 1940). It was a symbol of wealth, luxury, and elegance that adopted symmetry, rich colors, and bold rectilinear geometric shapes to exalt the technological progress of the early twentieth century. Peter Rossi Sr. ran a macaroni factory in his hometown of Torino, Italy, and then came to the mining town of Braidwood, Illinois in 1878. He opened a hardware store, a tin shop, and a macaroni factory. In 1927, his sons Peter and John opened a ballroom at Eagle Park. They built the service station when Route 66 was re-aligned in 1939, leased the Cafe to Conrad and Frank Weitz, and added a motel in 1951. The National Park Service this motel as one of the 1935-1958 Motel Buildings Remaining on Route 66 in Illinois.
The postcard is courtesy of Joe Sonderman.

 

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Here is a photo of Soulsby's Service Shell station in Mt. Olive, Illinois on Route 66. The advent of the national road system in 1926 ushered in a golden age for mom-and-pop entrepreneurs. For Henry Soulsby of Mount Olive, it happened just in time. Mr. Soulsby followed his father, an Irish immigrant, into mining, but in the mid-1920s an injury forced him aboveground. Understanding that a national highway would soon pass through Mount Olive, he invested most of his life savings in two lots at the corner of 1st Street, now called Old Route 66. With the balance, he built a gas station.
The Soulsby Station is an excellent example of a house with a canopy form. By the time Mr. Soulsby built his station in 1926, the leading oil companies had been hiring architects to design stations that would blend well with neighborhoods to minimize local opposition to the crudeness often associated with gas stations. Mr. Soulsby designed the building himself, taking into account these trends and blending well with the surrounding area.
Although the Great Depression soon began, the station thrived. America was broke, but it was still traveling. As Will Rogers would say, “We might be the first nation to drive to the poorhouse in an automobile.”
When Henry Soulsby retired, his children Russell and Ola Soulsby took over the station, a partnership that would endure until Ola died in 1996. Each was as adept as the other at pumping gas, checking the oil, and looking under the hood or chassis to detect and fix problems. Russell always had an eye for technology. During World War II, he was a communications technician in the Pacific theater. Shortly after coming home, he turned his experience into a second, simultaneous career--radio and television repair. He used an antenna on the roof of the station to test his work.
Route 66 was a great agent of progress and development, but its success helped spell its doom. In the late 1950s, Interstate 55 began supplanting it in Illinois. In Mount Olive, the Soulsby Station ended up a mile away from the new thoroughfare. In 1991, the Soulsby Station stopped pumping gas but continued to check oil, sell soda pop, and greet the ever-growing legion of Route 66 tourists. Sending everyone off with a wink and a wave, Russell and Ola closed the doors for good in 1993 and sold the station in 1997 to a neighbor, Mike Dragovich. When Russell Soulsby died in 1999, his funeral procession took him under the canopy one last time. This time it was his friends’ turn to wink and wave.
The current owner, Mr. Dragovich, and the Soulsby Preservation Society began preservation efforts in 2003, removing vinyl siding, restoring the original doors and windows, and repainting the exterior. In 2004, the National Park Service provided grant support for restoration efforts. Today, the station looks essentially the same as it did during its post-World War II heyday. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
The Soulsby Service Station is located on the southwest corner of First St. and Old Route 66 at 710 West First St. in Mount Olive, IL, and operates as a visitor center and museum.

 

Very Kewl

 

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The Painted Desert Trading Post is on the original 1926 alignment of Route 66 near Chambers, Arizona.
It was built in the early 1940s, and eventually abandoned when the road moved about a mile south.
The Route 66 Co-Op did an absolutely amazing job of stabilizing and restoring this bit of Route 66 history.

 

Gate, OK. Originally called “Gate City” was the entrance or gate to the Neutral Strip or No Man’s Land. It was called “the wildest, most wicked town in No Man’s Land. A few miles west of Gate was the infamous “hanging tree” used to punish criminals in extreme cases. Learn about Gate and 99 other small towns in Here Today: Oklahoma’s Ghost Towns, Vanishing Towns, and Towns Persisting against the Odds https://a.co/d/grBP6ws.

 

Rte. 66
At first I thought maybe the gas station stuff was placed there for fun, but some old photos proved this was indeed an old service station called Lester's dating to the late 1950s. By now, heading east, you've driven out of Tijeras Canyon and the Sandia Mountains and pass through a flattish but still high (scattered piñon pines and juniper) land that's kind of plainsish and kind of desertish, with both the old Route 66 sites and the new interchanges along Interstate 40 generally feeling lonesome.

 

Opening in Valentine Az.April 26th...The Old 76 on 66...Come see us!

 

Here is a "then & now" of the old Hinton Standard station. In 1934 Leon and Ann Little built a gas station, cafe, and motel complex at the intersection of Route 66 and U.S. 281 and called it Hinton Junction as the town of Hinton, Oklahoma was just a few miles south down Highway 281. He made it from clay tile covered with stucco and painted it white. With all of the Oklahoma red dust in the air, the white soon turned to pink. The ten-room motel sat just a little east of the station and cafe and was described as modern with individual air conditioning and television.

 

Archival photo gallery: Part of Route 66 before the historic highway bypassed Santa Fe, Cerrillos Road has been one of the city's main thoroughfares and entry points for decades. It has also been a catalyst of growth and change in Santa Fe.


Ghost Town Nelson, Nevada

 

Rte. 66
Shea’s (Springfield IL) got its new sign to replace the one sold at auction in 2015. It’s coming right along!
Thanks again to Ace Sign Co!

 

Some photos of the historic 1932 Standard Oil Filling Station in Odell, IL. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

 

Here is a "then & now" of "a stone-built Tydol gas station that has been a landmark just to the southwest of the West Kearney and West Bypass intersection, Springfield, Missouri since 1932. Built by Otto Young, it was originally a Flying A Station, and later sold Deep Rock gas. It had two duplex stone cabins, one of which still stands. Rexall “Rex” Smith operated the station and his propane business for decades. He died in 1976 but the station is still in the family today."

 

People here bred horses for the United States Cavalry and polo ponies for the national market. As a result, polo ponies were trained in Roosevelt, and the community began hosting polo matches in the 1920s.
Explore Roosevelt, Texas – Hill Country Ghost Town

 

20 April 2024. Magnolia Gas Station, Vega, TX. It's interesting to stop at this nicely restored building and read the signage in the windows about the history of this filling station. Especially how they delivered gas in barrels and pumped directly from the barrels into cars before the advent of gas pumps.

 

On US 1 -Waite, Maine

 

They are Working on the Restoration of this cool old Vintage Gas Station in Peach Springs Arizona on Route 66