Remembering Service Stations of the Past

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Filling Stations

My mother called them "filling stations" and we filled up regularly at a Shell service station on Main Street. She had a house account and signed a ticket. She had a gas card for Shell and I always wondered why she didn't just use that. On road trips we filled up at an Esso and later on at Exxon. She had every gas card I had ever heard of. Most of them she did not use. Later on when she changing everything from her old wallet to a new one I asked why she had so many and she said "Oh, they would just send them to you! They're probably not any good anymore." I said probably not since they hadn't made a credit card in that small size in 25 years. Lolll. My guess is my dad applied for them for her. I miss my mother!
 
Thanks, Brent. The location of that beautiful station is near the location of the Lenox MARTA station or at least near the line. That must be why it was torn down.

Ah, the days of unsolicited credit cards being mailed to consumers. When I was getting close to graduating from college, I was mailed a pre-approved MasterCard which I declined because I was scared of the trouble credit cards could cause. I had an Exxon card, for car repairs, not gas, and my Rich's card. Little did I know how much I would need a MasterCard when I moved away from Atlanta.

Often if you had one gas card, other companies would mail you one of their cards.
Some gas cards were usable at other gasoline stations, the Phillips 66 card was one that was like that.
 
One of my Father's friends from high school owned a Signal gas station in Richmond, Ca. That is where my parents almost always got gas in the 50's and early 60's. I don't know what happened to Signal Oil Co., but I haven't seen a Signal station since probably 1964. I remember that my parents always said "Fill it with Ethyl", thats what premium gas was called then. And you always got either S&H Green Stamps or Blue Chip Stamps when you bought gas. The windshield was washed, the tires and oil were checked at every fill up. And for those people on a budget you could even get used oil to top off your old oil burner! And when I first started to drive in the late 60's I can remember well buying only 50 cents worth of regular ( gas was around 27 cents a gal then) for my Volkswagon, because sometimes that was all I could afford, and they still washed the windshield!
 
Daddy always said "Fill it up with hi test." He was almost exclusively a Texaco customer both for gas, Havoline motor oil and Marfak Lubrication. He traveled about a thousand miles a week and brought home lots of S&H Green and Top Value Stamps. I remember one time a station attendant tried to make him think the car needed oil by checking the oil without giving it time to drain down after the motor was shut off. Daddy told him to wait a minute and then watched him to make sure he pushed the stick all the way in before the next reading. His cars were always too new to use oil.
 
I also remember that it wasn't uncommon for some service stsation attendents to try and make your dipstick look like you needed oil when you didn't. If I pretty much knew that I should't need oil and they told me I did I would also tell them to wait a few more mins. and recheck it. Service station attendents could also save the day. Once I was driving North on I-5 and stopped for gas just south of Eugene, Or. the attendent showed me that I had coolant leaking around the head gasket, on a brand new 74 Chev Nova. I was laid up in Eugene for 2 days while the Chev dealer replaced the head gasket.
 
Great stories guys!  

I forgot about Signal Gas.  I think the last place I witnessed / used the stations was in Tennessee during the late 1980's. 

Tom - your dad drove 1,000 miles a week?  That is incredible during that time! Did he put high miles on cars or get rid of them before issues occurred?   Just wondering what was the most mileage he put on a car back when.

So funny about credit cards.  I have a box with all of my old credit cards.  Businesses that have been gone for a long time.  One of the cards I had was for "Hess" department  stores.  The card number was only 5-XXXX.  So funny. Oh and not to mention my BellSouth Calling cards.  

Did any of you guys work in retail?  Remember how we had to call in charges to get approval?  The worst for me was when I was asked if I had the card in my hand, and if yes I was told to cut it up.  That was a terrible thing to do in front of the customer.  The world has changed so much....for the better.  I guess?

B

 
 
I just noticed this today for the first time

The sixth photo from the top, Sunoco Gas reduced to 26.9, is the northeast corner of Michigan Avenue and Oakman Blvd, in or near Detroit MI. (I no longer remember whether that is in the city or not.) There's a picture from Google Street View of that corner today. The half-assed red arrow points at the Detroit Terminal RR overpass. It seems closer in the old image, but that is the right place. It's not the first time I researched this location. That Sunoco photo popped up in an old FB group about Detroit Memories to which I belonged. I had found aerial photos of the intersection from the 50s and 60s while it was still the gas station, today it is a Payless shoe store.

nurdlinger-2014101514444807901_1.jpg
 
I sure must have made Service Stations a Dream Business, if I'd made a few out of my Legos for my Matchbox, Hot Wheels, Ertl and Pocket Cars (among other makes) and enough that they were fancy enough that had a Garage & Mechanic Shop and even car washes and restaurants, before acquiring a parking garage w/ a service station made by Matchbox and a car wash (forgot which car make it was made by, Hot Wheels or Pocket Cars) the latter, that bettered my Lego-made one...

 

 

-- Dave
 
Station in Round Rock, TX

Here are a few pictures of a station here in downtown Round Rock, TX. It isn't functional anymore but is used as an office building, they left the facade. I parked my truck out front for grins. Then a few more pictures of my old truck parked in front of an old theatre with someone's daughter dressed in 50's attire. They needed an old truck for the photo shoot.

dcraven-2014101516000205919_1.jpg

dcraven-2014101516000205919_2.jpg

dcraven-2014101516000205919_3.jpg
 
Brings back childhood memories - the gas stations were a place to go and hang out, watch the cars come in, be serviced and learn something about the machines that made the area I grew up in. We sure have come a long way in gas stations...Race Trac now has super stations that encourage buying overpriced food, treats, and drinks. They seem to be flourishing, even though, here, you pay at least 8% more for the same things you can buy down the street at the grocery store.

I miss the old stations. We have one in downtown Cumming,Ga that's restored, but not working; have you seen it, Brent?

Good thread!

ovrphil-2014101519464000976_1.jpg
 
Hi Phil,
I have not been to Cumming in quite a few years. I do however think I know of the service station you are talking about.
Do you have a street view of it from Google?
B
 
Brent, Dad traveled seven and a half states in the southeast, from Norfolk to New Orleans, mostly out on Monday afternoon and back on Friday evening, but some trips were two weeks, like when he went all the way to Miami, first week was down the east coast and the second week was back up the west coast. Cars had between 90 & 95 thousand miles at the end of two years when they were traded. They were well maintained and looked almost new, but back then, you could not put as many miles on a car and still expect dependable service as you can today.
 
We Still....

....Have Sinclair stations here in Waterloo, IA.

They're not the Sinclair stations of old; they're "pumpers," meaning all self-service, with their convenience stores making up the bulk of their business. They're also vastly behind the times; the one at Falls and Ansborough Avenues doesn't even have card-reader pumps.

But hey, Dino's still on the sign, and that has to count for something, right?
 
Tom,

That is an awesome memory.  I am sure you missed your Dad during his travels.  I find your memory of it all so amazing.  Although it might not be amazing to you.  

I would love to hear more.  May I ask what was his line of work?  

Brent
 
Still have Sinclair with Dino on the pumps? Ah, cool! I love that. What it means, in today's gas prices-change-by-the-second world, isn't alot.... but I like the old stations. One station, I mentioned before perhaps, that I loved to use was in Perrysburg,Ohio. The station was just outside downtown Perrsyburg and really like the old stations. Unfortunately, the guy sold it and the new tanks and pumps went in. Time just took over the decision making - tanks were out of regulation safety, etc.

There were some old stations along Route 66....but that was on my out to California in 1970...will never forget those, but circumstances didn't allow me to stop at any of them and take pictures. Sorry, now, that I didn't take those photos.

Ok, I said too much already.
 
We had one Sinclair station here years ago that was just one pump for self service. Regular Dino gas was .28 a gallon when I got my licence. Dino Supreme was .32, memories I wished I had back. There are only a small handful of what we called real service stations left around here. Now they are all self serve pumps, mostly Irving, with Circle K convenience stores everywhere.
 
Tiger Tails!

OMG, I had forgotten about them!

Think about whose brain-fart THEY were? You slammed the tail on your gas-fill. Then drove around while it was absorbing fumes/fluid. One encounter with a stray cigarette or lit match and FOOM! I'm surprised we didn't hear more about this!

Then there were the Arco (or was it Sunoco) give-aways that were styrofoam balls with "streamers" attached, that you put on your radio aerial so you could find your car in a parking lot. Nice idea, but there were often 100's of them in the lot.

My ex and I loved the Shell glass give-aways. The little bubble-shaped smoked glasses with (I think) football logos. Then there were the "beer king" glasses, big globes with narrowed-down feet to get a grip on. There were also 12-oz. smoked-glass tumblers that we collected.

Remember when we had to be "enticed" into buying gasoline?

When I started driving, a gallon of gas was 33 cents, the same as for a pack of Winstons. How far we've come...
 
And Gulf had the No Nox high test gas and gave orange horseshoes to stick on your trunk. My father went only to a certain Sunoco station he liked and they gave out "Sunny Dollars" you could match together and win and I got them. I won a Presidential coin set that ended with Lindon Johnson. Guess alot of time has flown by. Wonder if its worth anything now.
 
i lived across the street from a Sinclair station when I was very young. We were renting at the time and my dad had an opportunity to buy the house for next to nothing. Mom refused to live across the street from a gas station. I don't remember Dino Gas, but I do remember my green injection molded plastic Sinclair Diplodocus bank!

Jim
 
Memory lane

Reading all these great stories and looking at the great pics has got me thinking--trying to see if I remember all the gas stations in the small town in Ohio where I grew up...

On the north end of town, there was a Sohio (still there as a BP-Lassus Bros. Handy Dandy) and a Gulf, also still there, but I don't think it's still Gulf--might be Marathon. The Super Walmart (new in the last several years) has gas pumps, too. Up close to downtown there was a Certified (still there) and Sinclair, which I think was also an Arco at some point. That one's a used car dealer now. On the west edge of downtown was Bonded with its rotating sign (became a Family Video in the 90s). The Texaco across the street closed in the 70s and a bank branch was built on the spot, which is now a government office of some sort. A few blocks west of that was a Clark station, which i think recently closed. I think there was another gas station in the neighborhood, but it was long closed and was a Bunny Bread store when I was a kid. West of there was a Marathon (closed) and there was a Sunoco a block away, next to Burger Chef. By the 80s, it was just an off-brand station. When I was in high school, a Marathon went in out west of town with a big store/ice cream shop that the owners converted from a sit-down family restaurant.

On the south side, near the shopping center, was a Sohio (Later, BP, now a buy-here-pay-here car lot) and a station that has been Gulf, Unocal 76, and is currently Marathon. Also south, across from the fairgrounds, is a Shell that's been Shell forever. My Dad owned it back in the 60s. Out east, there used to be a Marathon (closed in the 80s or so), and Short Stop, which I think didn't get pumps until the 80s. There was a tiny, old-fashioned station where the old Lincoln Highway made a 2-block jog north before going back east. I don't remember what brand it was. It's housed everything from a plumber to the pizza delivery that's there now. Close to that was a larger station. I can't remember that brand either, but I think it was the last place to have old-fashioned gas pumps from what I recall. Where Lincoln Hwy turned back to the east again there was a big modern (60s/70s) Mobil station and garage. It's been packed with old cars since the 80s--I don't know if it's a business or just a landfill.
 
Union-76

We used to have a Union-76 down in Florida and a Hess station. U76's are all gone in South Florida and the Hess stations are BP now, I think.

Malcolm
 
Nowadays with the way things are for gas prices I don't think many people really even care what brand of fuel they use anymore. Oil companies have all but stopped advertising their fuels.

I know in my X5 I have to be careful in the summertime what fuel brand I use. I I use fuel from the corner store, Raceway, or Stripes the car will be very hard to start on a hot day, especially after it's been run for awhile. For example. It's 95F outside and we drive to the grocery store. We shut the car down and go inside.
We are in there maybe 30-45 min. When we come out the car just does not want to start. When it does, it stumbles and trembles and dies out as soon as you put it in gear. It takes maybe 3-5 minutes before it runs properly. But if we use Exxon, Citgo, Murphy or Chevron it doesn't do that at all.

I think the problem is that the fuel injector lines run over part of the engine block. The cheaper brands of fuel may not have enough anti-percolation chemical in them. The gas is actually percolating in the gas lines from the heat of the engine. The brands that don't do this have enough of the chemical.

this is a common occurrence in fuel injected aircraft engines too. Sometimes you'll run your battery down trying to get the damn things started on a hot day. Sometimes the only thing you can do is wait it out for the engine to cool down.
 
Sounds like

A type of vapor lock!
Common among old carbureted cars. (When its hot day) this new gas doesn't help either.
If the fuel get hot enough to turn into a vapor, the there is no liquid for the pump to move. Just have to wait for it to cool, and turn back into a liquid
 
Vapor lock

I agree, Allen. Back in the 80's, my old VW Rabbits did the exact thing in hot weather if I tried to run bargain gas. Back then, the cut-rate stations were the only ones to blend in 10% ethanol. for most cars of the time, it wasn't a big deal, but i think the VW engines ran a bit hotter than a typical Chevy or Honda. I'm a little surprised to hear of something as new as an X5 with this issue.

My folks' Rabbit, an automatic, had an additional hot-weather/long trip issue, in that the starter solenoid got overheated from proximity to the exhaust manifold and wouldn't restart until after a cooling down period (even in winter on a long drive). Even my then-new 2000 Golf could sometimes be balky when hot, but it never refused to start.

Gee, looking back, I see I've been spoiled by my 07 Fusion and my current Lexus CT. Maybe that's why I bought my '99 Saab convertible, to keep myself from getting too spoiled by reliable perfection?
 

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