Text by Patrick Bell.
We are going to check out some service stations today, definitely a relic of the past, although I believe there is one state left that does not allow self service gas stations. Most of the locations are unknown, but there is a wide variety of companies. I remember them well, where you could get gas and have your fluids and tires checked without getting out of your car. I never was employed at one, but I hung around several when the opportunity presented itself.
Our first stop is at a Shell station where a ’59 Dodge Royal or Custom Royal 4 door sedan, possibly from Kentucky, was getting a fill up. In the left background, a blue ’61 Mercury Comet, pinkish ’57 Lincoln Coupe, red fifties Willys Jeep Station Wagon, black perhaps ’47 Chevrolet, and a white over black ’55 Chevrolet Two-Ten 2 door sedan.
One search results says this Standard station was in Toledo, Ohio. If you need some tires they were having a sale. A gentleman was pulling in with a V8 powered ’54 Ford Crestline Skyliner, the first year and most popular of the transparent top models. In the background right, could be a ’42 or ’46-’48 Ford Coupe.
Perhaps this was Mr. Kitchens and Mr. Landers giving a ’52 Studebaker Commander State 4 door sedan a fill up and some under the hood attention in the driveway of their Sinclair station. The Studebaker looks in good condition other than the missing wheel cover, and in the garage was a ’53 Oldsmobile.
We are now at a Richfield station, where a man is showing off some money for some reason. I don’t know if he was the boss or a customer. In the drive was another ’53 Oldsmobile.
Stop by your neighborhood Texaco dealer and get your very own Precision Barometer for only $3.50. That sounds cheap but it was over 12 gallons of that Fire Chief regular, essentially the cost of a fill up. A ’54 Chevrolet Bel Air 4 door sedan from Massachusetts was in the drive for some fuel with a ’59 Ford Custom 300 in front of it. Over to the left was a white over gold ’54 Plymouth Belvedere 4 door sedan.
A ’58 Chevrolet Nomad with a V8 and a not so aerodynamic rooftop carrier was stopped at a Humble station next to a train station. The family must have been checking out the clean restrooms. The car was from Texas and that likely was the location as well. In the background, a ’53-’55 Ford F-series pickup and a clean white over coral ’53 Ford Crestline Victoria.
Jesse Mize was ahead of his time, combining a grocery store with a gas station in Millington, Tennessee, shown in this image from 1958. They call them convenience stores now, and they are pretty well the majority, at least in my part of the world. Up front was a ’50 Mercury six passenger Coupe that so far had escaped the customizer’s torch, and under the canopy was a ’50 Ford Fordor that did have some custom touches around the tail lamp area. And to the right, a ’47-’53 GMC New Design cab with perhaps a refrigerated box.
Now we are at a Gulf Service Center, probably somewhere in California, where a V8 powered ’51 Ford F-2 pickup was receiving some service. I presume the carpet under it is for the mechanic’s comfort as he slid around underneath the truck. There is a nearly empty bottle of oil on the ground, and the mechanic was wearing a retractable key holder, which was common service station attire. To the left was the tail of a ’61 Chrysler Newport or Windsor with the Fight-Sweep Deck Lid, and beyond there was the tail of a ’55 Plymouth.
A search reveals Dugan’s Skelly station was in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and this photo was taken in 1962. The street signs say it was at the corner of Cimmaron and Cascade. The only thing that remains is possibly the manhole. The car in the drive on the right was a ’61 Plymouth, and on the left a rose colored ’57 Oldsmobile and a white or gray ’60 Rambler Deluxe. In the background was a ’59 Oldsmobile and a blue and white ’57 Ford Custom 300 Fordor sedan.
Here is another Gulf station where a ’59 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 Holiday Sport Sedan with a ’60 issue Illinois license plate was getting a fill up. The gentlemen on the other side were likely the occupants, and they were intently looking at a roll of paper. On the other side of the Olds was a green ’50 Plymouth DeLuxe or Special DeLuxe Club Coupe. Across the street looks like a DeSoto dealer’s used car lot with a black over red ’54 Powermaster or Firedome 4 door sedan, and a white over tan ’56 Firedome or Fireflite.
Brrr. It was a cold, dreary day at this Sinclair station. There are many signs to see, but none that have any readable information. And I can’t read the license plate on the ’61 Chevrolet Biscayne 4 door sedan in the foreground. Others include two Willys Jeeps, a CJ2 or 3, and a Station Wagon, one of which likely had a snow plow attachment.
Raleigh, North Carolina, was the location of this station, known as Five Points Gulf. Behind them was Hayes Barton Laundry and Dry Cleaning, and around the corner a Winn Dixie. Two attendants were checking out a ’59 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 Holiday Sport Sedan, with a ’63 Mercury Monterey Custom in the other lane, and a ’63 Chevrolet Impala facing away. In the background facing to the left was a ’58 Ford.
Stinker’s has been around for nearly 90 years and has grown into a chain of convenience stores and truck stops with locations in Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado. This one was located at 300 N. Orchard St. in Boise, and the image is from about ’69 or ’70. According to an article I found, this building was replaced in ’84 with an updated Stinker Station, but now it is closed and empty. The article went on to say the property was to be redeveloped as an apartment complex. As of September of last year Street View, no work has been done. The blue building next door is still there, though barely recognizable.
The Boise Paint and Glass building is also still there, and a McDonald’s is still down the street. You can see part of the Golden Arches in this photo. The ’59 Ford Ranch Wagon or Country Sedan at the station had a ’68 issue Idaho license plate with an additional year tab on the lower right. Behind it facing to the left is a ’67 Plymouth Belvedere, in the street heading this way was a ’68 Plymouth Fury, in the parking lot to the left a white ’64 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe, and a yellow ’67-’72 GMC pickup with a camper shell.
My dad was from Boise, and my mom was from another town in Idaho. After they married they moved to Alaska, and eventually back to Boise in their later years. So I went there several times, visiting relatives, and actually lived there for a year in the early eighties.
Thanks for looking in today, and to all good day!
Oh, how I wanted to work at a service station when I was a kid. The smell of gasoline that wafted through the air was intoxicating to me. My mother got most of her auto service done at a neighborhood gas station in the 60s and into the early 70s. With newer cars, it was tune ups, wiper blades, brakes and batteries.
Back then, gasoline truly had an intoxicating aroma; unlike today, when it’s an acrid smelling mix of chemicals that can burn the skin!! 🙂
I did work at a gas station starting at age 15, but the smell of gasoline lost its luster after the filler nozzle I had just turned on to full blast on a low rear-mounted GM car like the ’59 Olds in one of the pictures here came right back out and flipped to shoot a blast of gasoline into my face and semi-opened mouth.
It was a busy station so I had to just run in, rinse off my head and get back to it. It was a hot day and the sweat and gas on my shirt was not a happy experience the rest of the day.
I had the same thing happen to me as a young child at a Shell station in Midland Texas from our 58 Pontiac. I was watching the attendant fill it and got a face full of premium.
I had something like that happening to me. I apprenticed at a Sunoco station, while attending auto tech in highschool at 16. Now and then, I’d get a gulp while syphoning. It seems to have started an addiction, he, he.
Gasoline used to smell better, when it was still leaded. Filling up dad’s two-cycle Huffy lawnmower at 11 was more pleasant than filling up my own, later on more recently.
I’ve read somewhere where supposedly carcinogenic benzol is added to European unleaded, except for only in Austria where it’s banned. Might have been a myth, though. After looking the article back up, years later, it doesen’t seem to be in the internet anymore
I worked in a Sunoco station in high school. It started as one day a week so my friend could have a day off and it eventually became every day. It was an older station and the owner got into a newer station nearby and closer to his home. I was the last person to ever work there, when I left for GMI in August 1966, it was closed and torn down. It was next door to a small Ford dealership and they brought the new ’66 Fords over for us to wash. The police also had us wash and service their vehicles. So I got to drive those vehicles back. The police had full size Chevy, 396″ V8, PowerGlide. There was a Sohio station and Chrysler/Plymouth dealership across the street but we didn’t have anything to do with them. However the Chrysler dealer owner lived on my parents road and his nice looking daughters rode my school bus. I saw in the obits one daughter died this week. A Speedway station (Marathon Oil) has all the gas business in that area now.
The Standard Station above likely wasn’t here in Ohio as Standard stations here in Ohio were named ” Sohio ” since 1912. Rockefeller started Standard Oil in Lima, Ohio. BP eventually bought Sohio. “BP” is prolly to disguise they are foreign owned by British Petroleum. Same for “Shell” which is Royal Dutch Petroleum.
Tires at gas stations were usually priced about double what they could be bought for at Sears, Wards, etc… Of course, when a tire failed, a gas station was likely the handiest place to go. (back when they did service work) We used to have 3 or 4 gas stations at many intersections. Now it’s 3 – 5 drugstores. Some of those chain drugstores shut down even before construction of the new building is done. Dollar stores grab the buildings.
Isn’t it amazing we could see a tiny bit of an obstructed ’61 Plymouth off in the distance and know what it is? Now we see the whole vehicle and don’t know what continent it came from.
I love the smell of gasoline in the morning… it smells like FUN !
The last pic – is that 26.9 cents for a US gallon? If my memory serves me well it cost about 7 shillings [ pre decimal currency] for a UK gallon at that time – about 35pence . Seemed plenty dear at the time , I was only earning about 12 quid a week.
Gas here was as low as 25.9 cents per U.S. gallon as late as 1972… $5/gallon Summer of 2008. ($6 in Hawaii or boat marina here on the water, my old 25′ twin V8s sport boat held 108 gallons) … Down to $1.25 under 1st Trump… $5 in 2022 under Jokementia… back down to $2.40 now here at the new WOW! brand station and hopefully still dropping… $5/gallon gas and a 20 gallon gas tank in my Ford F150 or Crown Victoria used to do a lot of damage to a crisp new $100 bill…
This is a classic automobile site. Please hold any political references/inferences out of any posts in the future – so it can stay that way.
Thank you in advance…
In U.S. terms, I that works out to about 82¢ per U.S. gallon, so just over three times the price.
I like this one, I remember when we got service like this, and had a ’58 Windsor like this one once:
Great photos of Americana that is beloved – well beloved by me. The second picture has a ’54 Ford Skyliner. Hmmmm, as the ad said, “It’s the top. It’s the top. It’s the car with the transparent top!” Attached is a Phillips 66 station in Upper Nyack, NY. Phillips no longer distributes here. The station has seen several brands as it is privately owned. Currently, it is a Gulf Station. Note the classic Phillips 66 design. The station owners, whoever they have been over the years, know that this is never to be changed because film producers use this station a number of times a year for movies that need that “look of back then.”
That snow photo matches my memory of a typical Wisconsin service station. I imagine it would match many locations across the North.
More great photos, and detailed descriptions. Thank you Rich and Patrick.
What seems like a brief moment in time, when an array of gas companies competed strongly, for your business.
When I travelled as a child with my parents, I always made a point of trying to find intersections where there were four stations. Rare. Usually saw it in suburbs of larger cities.
Used to love the handheld machine that took carbon copies of your credit card number.
Also loved pyramids built from motor oil cans, and the sound of the overhead streamers blowing in the wind. Always checked out the three or four used cars for sale, as I my dad got the car filled up.
Found this photo below fascinating. A very rural location, of two popular highways (Highway 7) north of Toronto, from 1967. A Fina station, a Texaco, an Esso, and B/A (British American) a Canadian oil company.
I still have a small pile of those old fashioned carbon credit card slips from my great Uncle Clyde’s Texaco station in S Woodstock VT (just 2 gas pumps in front of an wooden carriage-house building with 2 bay, that he & his wife lived above.). Also a placque awarded to him by Texaco in 1947; “Thank you for 25 years of Service”.
He started out in 1922 working on Model Ts and ended with LTDs around 1970. Also a green metal Texaco map holder and a “Fire Chief” sign off one of the pumps. Should have taken that pump & the credit card slider thingy too!
That old picture remind me of the former rotary (known in French as “rond-point”) in Lévis, replaced by traffic lights years ago at the current junction or Route 132 and Route 173.
https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/3623732
https://numerique.banq.qc.ca/patrimoine/details/52327/3623731
The dreary, snowy Sinclair station is from Ithaca, New York.
There was a business in Ithaca called Al’s Dairy Bar, which seems to be on the billboard next to the Station. Al’s was located at 321 College Ave. in Ithaca. There’s no older buildings near that location now, so I looked at a 1948 aerial image to see of the location matched (below).
There was indeed a service station next to Al’s. Also, the roofline of the building across the street matches the historic aerial. Finally, there was another business on College Ave. called “College News and Smoke Shop” – which appears to be on a sign across the street.
Cold just viewing that pic
Those Shell pumps in the first picture look pretty modern at the time of the picture. I recall they still looked that way into the early 80s. The closest station to me, in San Diego, was a Shell station when I started driving. By 19 my first credit card was from Shell. By the time of the mid-80s service stations were breaking down into majors and small indies with obvious differences in cost per gallon. Those mid-80s was the last time I ever used a Shell station or any other major except ARCO which is lower priced, like indies, in California.
Back in 1970s it was crazy! Stores, businesses, gasoline companies were sending out unasked for active credit cards! Our dogs, cats, parakeets were getting credit cards in the mail! If they could get a name, add our last name and address, they’d send out unsolicited credit cards… of course, those days are long gone now…
Don’t recall ever having an ARCO station around here. Marathon Oil headquartered in Findlay, Ohio sells gas under about 10 other different off brand names.
Saw something about an Agyp brand gas station in Africa, it said it really was a ‘gyp’ as the price was about 10 times higher than expected.
Highest priced gas station around here used to be the only one near the airport. Something to do with the car rental companies would take returned vehicles there and top off the gas tank before computing your final bill…
That is true about cards. My immediate second one was from Sears. That enabled me to start buying all the Craftsman tools I have today besides Die Hard batteries and tires for decades. I miss Sears as their tool section is a fraction of what it once was.
I halfway worked at a Sunoco station in the ’60s, mostly hanging around but sometimes paid. The best part was running the snowplow, mounted on an old tractor. Had to disconnect the bell-ringing hoses first so I wouldn’t break them.
That shot of the Olds 88 reminds me of my days driving a ’66 Chevelle. IIRR, the gas cap was hidden behind the rear license plate, which was held in place by a fairly tight hinge-spring. God help you if it somehow clamped down on your hand!
Here’s the Precision Barometer advertised in Picture #5 – “Handsome for your home, office or schoolroom.”
Appears this was a nationwide Texaco promotion in 1961.
Great find! Design is not that attractive.
Mazda could have presented it, as a gift to new rotary-engined owners.
Philips could have presented it as a gift to new Norelco rotary shaver owners:
Like a lot of teen aged boys back in the ’70’s, I worked at a gas station on the weekends. We were still a full service station, pumped gas, checked oil, coolant, tires, and cleaned windows. I learned to fix flats on tubed and tubeless tires, did the occasional oil change and lube job, and rented U Haul trailers and tow bars. I shudder when I remember attaching the bolt on “universal” bumper hitches. They had hooks on the top and bottom joined by a chain and turnbuckle arrangement. They fit okay on most cars, some, maybe not so well. Unless we felt that they would fall off, we sent them on their way. We reminded the customer to check the tightness of the fittings every twenty five miles or so. Boy, I hope they remembered to do that! I also remember crimping on connectors to hook up the trailer lights, often with mixed results.
I have never really liked the smell of gasoline and still don’t. Gas back then was around 30 cents a gallon, I remember once buying 5 cents worth for my little Honda motorcycle to get me the couple of miles I needed to reach home. I also remember gas costing 22 cents a gallon back in the early ’60’s. We lived down the street from a gas station back then, and the station is in the background of family photos from that time.
Most stations still had mechanics that would do routine repairs and even engine overhauls. Cars didn’t last over 200,000 miles back then!
I also worked at a big car wash for almost a year. I got to drive a wide variety of cars from the vacuum station, on to the conveyor and off at the end. That was the fun part.
The 61 Biscayne reminds me of my first car, mine was 3 on the tree,235 six four door sedan.Good car!
Seeing the Stinker station brings back memories of boyhood trips to Idaho and the humorous Stinker ads along the roadside. One I remember was, next to a pile of large rocks, “Petrified Watermelons, Take One Home To You Mother-In-Law”.
lololol
I did a double take when I saw the headline photo of the Stinker station on orchard in Boise Idaho – I was there for 3 years in the late seventies and frequented that very station – it was the place to go for the best premium in town – 94 octane pump premium would run you about 60 cents a gallon, and a pack of cigarettes would cost you .50.. The place was like a car show on Friday or Saturday nights- and orchard was a thoroughfare on your way to cruise downtown, or to head out to drag race on pleasant valley road north of the airport.. Good times. Had a super cute girlfriend too.
25 or 26 cents a gallon was common in the mid to late 1960’s. In Michigan FISCA stations often went down to as low as 17 cents per gallon.
5 gallons for a dollar !!! What a DEAL…
I remember when gas stations used to have gas wars! One would lower their price and then the other one across the street had to do the same. Sometimes the gas would get pretty cheap! Also remember them giving away things like glasses, or towel sets etc. and green stamps! I also remember some of them gave away metal trucks for the kids. They were big enough that you could sit on them as a toddler. My younger brother and I used to play for hours with them and build roads to drive them on. I eventually drove dump trucks and built roads! I sure wish the gas prices would come back down.
I too was riveted by the sights ans smells of filling stations in the late 50’s through the 60’s .
In 1972 I got my wish , a job at a 1923 Atlantic Richfield station, we had 13 service bays and three old 1940’s Wayne pumps on the tiny island .
I had to wash windows, check oil and try to upsell the Customers .
Out single hydraulic hoist had a leaky seal, one time they didn’t leave the prop underneath it when we closed and it lowered the lifted car onto two other Customers cars…
Oops gotta run ! .
-Nate
I still have 6 juice glasses my grandmother got with a fill up from the former Esso, now Exxon, down the street in the late 60s-early 70s. There was another Esso across the street, but it changed to Union 76 at some point before being torn down for an ugly new bank. It was an urban style station where you drove under the second story to get gas. The bank building copied that idea for its entrance, but on the corner of the building.
I remember when I was a kid my dad would give me a quarter and gallon gas can, send me to the corner station to get a gallon of gas and I got to keep the change! Three cents got a bag of candy in those days!
I actually remember the Dugan’s Skelly Station. Moved to Colorado Springs as a kid. We got gas there several times before we moved up to the Austin bluffs areas. Amazing someone had a photo of the place! Love the old cars shown as well. I want one..