Old gas stations

[MikeKardec]

On a recent trip to Germany I was wandering around an open air museum of classic (sometimes ancient) Westphalian architecture ... reconstructed towns, farms and windmills many hundreds and hundreds of years old ...

This sort of stuff --



and then, out of nowhere, I came upon this classic petrol station --



This picture is from the station's earlier life somewhere else in the area.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Corner of South Main and Crescent Streets, Rockland, Me. May 1950.

This type of station was the most common general design in New England until the porcelain icebox style became popular in the 1940s. Canopies were very unpopular and uncommon here due to their inability to stand up well to heavy snow.

Gas is still sold at this location today, but the station building was torn down in the 1980s and replaced by a convenience store.

A "Colonial" Esso dealer indicates the station was supplied by Standard of New Jersey's New England affiliate, the Colonial-Beacon Oil Company of Boston. Esso was not allowed to use the "Standard" name in New England because Socony -- Standard of New York -- controlled the name here.

 

[Stearmen]

Here is an interesting sight. http://pleasantfamilyshopping.blogspot.com/2011/03/golden-age-of-gas-stations.html I have forgotten how easy it was to recognize which company it was just by the style of building!

 

[dh66]

Great article! Thanks for posting that.

 

[1mach1]

This one is in Fredericksburg, VA. Now a thrift shop.

 

[2jakes]

General store with a pump or two in the front.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Corner of North Main Street and Broadway, Rockland Me. c. 1940. A rare example of a canopy station in Maine, and note also that this is essentially a convenience store forty years before they became fashionable, with a line of meats and groceries advertised on the sign.

This station was replaced by an oblong-box-with-bays in the 1950s, which was converted to a convenience store in the late '70s. Gas is still sold at this location, and I buy most of my gas there.

 

[Retro Spectator]

I wonder, were there ever craftsman style gas stations?

 

[Stearmen]

A little sad news Lizzie, two more of our Texaco's have gone away! At this rate we will have non. Sad.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A little sad news Lizzie, two more of our Texaco's have gone away! At this rate we will have non. Sad.

Texaco's almost entirely gone from here -- all that's left are "Havoline XPress Lube" oil change places which still carry the Texaco logo. Exxon is also gone, and Mobil is on the way out. Those three companies dominated gasoline sales in Maine in the Era. Gulf and Citgo (formerly Cities Service) are still around, you occasionally see a Sunoco, and Shell has made a strong comeback after almost forty years' absence, but that's pretty much it for the old-time brands here.

 

[Stearmen]

Texaco's almost entirely gone from here -- all that's left are "Havoline XPress Lube" oil change places which still carry the Texaco logo. Exxon is also gone, and Mobil is on the way out. Those three companies dominated gasoline sales in Maine in the Era. Gulf and Citgo (formerly Cities Service) are still around, you occasionally see a Sunoco, and Shell has made a strong comeback after almost forty years' absence, but that's pretty much it for the old-time brands here.

I just realized another sad fact! There are no true service stations left in my city. And we are a city these days, with a population of 446,439 people.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Rob

 

[dh66]

Rob you need to publish a book! I'm lovin' the old photos.

 

[Fading Fast]

Texaco's almost entirely gone from here -- all that's left are "Havoline XPress Lube" oil change places which still carry the Texaco logo. Exxon is also gone, and Mobil is on the way out. Those three companies dominated gasoline sales in Maine in the Era. Gulf and Citgo (formerly Cities Service) are still around, you occasionally see a Sunoco, and Shell has made a strong comeback after almost forty years' absence, but that's pretty much it for the old-time brands here.

Any idea why Shell is going the opposite way of the others?

 

[LizzieMaine]

It was mostly the result of some kind of three-way deal emerging from the Chevron-Texaco merger. Shell picked up the marketing rights to the Texaco brand in certain states for a limited time, and when that time went out they converted those stations to the Shell band.

Shell was very aggressive about this sort of thing in the Era. They were mostly a western company, with only a limited presence in the East until the thirties, when they began buying out or leasing all sorts of independent chains of stations. Their "paint leases" were exactly that -- they leased a station, and before the contract was dry they slapped red and yellow paint on the premises and put up a Shell sign. That's the way a lot of the Texaco transitions were handled here at first, but now they seem to be building new outlets on their own.

They pulled out of here in 1975 -- we were a Shell heating oil distributor at the time, and it forced us to scramble to find a replacement supplier. The explanation was that the energy crisis was costing them more money to distribute in the state than the sales were worth. That kind of didn't impress us, since there was a large and bustling Shell shipping terminal in our bay.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Rob you need to publish a book! I'm lovin' the old photos.

Thanks, DH...I've got plenty more; I'm just trickling them in, a few at a time.

Rob

 

[Fading Fast]

Thank you Lizzie

 

[HudsonHawk]

It was mostly the result of some kind of three-way deal emerging from the Chevron-Texaco merger. Shell picked up the marketing rights to the Texaco brand in certain states for a limited time, and when that time went out they converted those stations to the Shell band.

As a condition of the Chevron/Texaco merger, Texaco was required to divest much of its downstream operations, which included their stake in two joint ventures with Shell...one called Equilon and one called Motiva. Shell got the rights to the Texaco brand at the divested service stations through 2004. But like most major oil companies, Shell has since sold all company-owned gas stations, and no longer own any in the US. It's simply a brand of gasoline sold by independent station owners.

 

[LizzieMaine]

70 Park Street, Rockland, Me., circa 1925. There's still a garage at this address, but the original building is long, long gone. A good example of a no-frills, no-design twenties gas station -- a shabby corrugated metal building thrown up on a cheap piece of land on the edge of town.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Nice photo, Lizzie.

Here's a few...







Rob