Greetings ~
Gas stations, or, as we call them today, "service stations", have been a part of America almost as far back as the automobile itself.
Not long after the car's introduction to the public, people had to stop at their local dry goods store, or general store for their fuel. They would buy a gallon or so in large glass bottles and go outside and pour it into their ride's little gas tank. Farmers would keep about 15 to 25 gallons on-hand in large metal drums in the barn for their tractors and other farming machinery that ran on the stuff. But it would be soon after that the actual gas station would come to be.
In the 19teens and early '20s, gas stations were meerly little tiny structures, not much bigger than a lawn shed. There was a gas pump out front, they sold oil in quart size glass bottles with metal spouts. The first stations did not perform auto repairs. But after only a year or so, they began to.
In those early days, auto repairs were mostly done outdoors beside the station's building. The lift rack was outside also. But, almost from the very first, the Coke machine was present.
In many cases in those early stations, the single attendant did it all. He was the only employee at the place. He would work on cars and then, as someone pulled to the pump, he would wipe his hands on a rag that was greasier and dirtier than his hand had been as he walked over the the arriving customer to "fill 'er up! As the years went by, gas stations got bigger and more stylish and they stocked more and more merchandise. You could buy candy bars, little bags of peanuts, cigarettes, cigars, road maps, sunglasses, smoking pipes, matches, lighters, lighter fluid, flints, shaving safety razors, tiny bags of potato chips and, of course, Coca Cola.
There were restrooms for men and women. In those days the men used the men's room and the women used the women's room. We didn't mix and match back then. There were a few gas stations that were actually famous for how clean their restrooms were. Texaco, Shell, Sohio, Sunoco, and several others. Driving on a trip, if someone in the car "had to go", and there was a small, unknown gas station right there, the driver would say, "Hold it for awhile. There's a Sohio station just about ten more miles. Their restrooms are known to be cleaner." And if the person ended up peeing themselves in the back seat, then that Sohio station also sold stuff to clean the seat with.
It would come to be that the neighborhood filling station was a place to "hang out" also. Kids would hang around just because they were kids and the computer and cell phone were not invented yet. Grown men would hang out because they knew "walt" the owner and could sit around the place all day and "jaw" with him. But more popular were probably the teenage boys that hung out there because of the cars and hotrods coming and going all day long.
When television came to be, more and more commercials were for gasoline companies and showed the gas station as a place to get help on a trip and they told about how special "their" gas was over any other. But in reality, gas was gas no matter what fancy name you gave it. The highest grade back then was called Ethel. Who knows why? But I remember pulling into the stations back then when the attendant asked, "do you want Ethel?" I'd say, "Sure! As long as she can cook and clean the house, I'll take her if you don't want her. Oh, and I need gas too!"
In the 1960s you could fill your car for around $5.00. I had a 1956 Cadillac Sedan DeVille and could put a dollar's worth of gas in the tank and drive for three to four days. Of course, gas then was around 23c a gallion. When I began driving in 1965, gas at some stations was 19c a gallion. Cigarettes cost 20c a pack, a candy bar was a nichel and a Coke was a dime.
There was no fluctuation in gas prices back then either. Gas was a standard price and stayed there for months or even a couple of years before it went up in price. It wasn't like today where gas is $2.40 and then tomorrow it's $3.60. Gas prices back then would go up about 1c every year or so.
Road maps were free. For those too young to know what a road map was, it was a GPS device made out of paper that was all folded up and you kept in the glove compartment of your car.
Most gas stations had pay telephones in booths or simply on the wall inside. Local phone calls cost you a dime. Long distance was a little more.
Back in those earlier time in the 1950s and 1960s, you didn't have to worry about running out of gas in the city, there was a station on all four corners of about any intersection.
Many of the upper crust gas companies gave away free stuff for a fill up. Items such as dishes, pots and pans, tool sets, drinking glasses, auto accessories, auto atlas's which were simply big road maps in book form that were so big that they would not fit anywhere in your car. Other items were toys, food and the famous S&H Green Stamps. (The S&H Green Stamps we will talk about in another blog later).
The give-a-ways back then were not cheap little plastic crap that broke three minutes after leaving the station like the junk they hand out now. It was quality merchandise. many people still have sets of dishes today that their grandparents got back then. I remember, as a kid around the age of 6 or 7, back in the 1950s, they had a steel Texaco toy truck that I really wanted. They were giving it away with a fill up of gas. My dad came home from work one day and gave me that truck. He had stopped on the way home and got a fill up. I was thrilled, to say the least.
Back in the mid years of the 20th century there were several places in most towns and cities that still stand out as our favorite places. Movie theaters, fast food restaurants, hobby shops, record shops and the gas station. Today there are no attendants to pump your gas or check your oil or even to clean your windows. Many of them today look more like grocery stores that gas stations. But one thing still stands out. Just like the first stations of old...they still sell Coca Cola.