Old gas stations

[Trenchfriend]

I always thought, such small gas stations must have had tiny toilet rooms?

 

[Zombie_61]

I always thought, such small gas stations must have had tiny toilet rooms?

Whatever gave you that idea?

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Nice looking Gulf.

Rob

 

[LizzieMaine]

I used to be scared of the Bear Alignment sign when I was very young. Just look at it!

Why is his face like that? Why is his mouth lolling open? Why is he cockeyed? Why is he standing in a red puddle of blood? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

 

[BobHufford]

I used to be scared of the Bear Alignment sign when I was very young. Just look at it!

All I think of when I see the Bear Alignment bear is this ...

 

[Fading Fast]

Those Mobile tanks in the bottom pic are really nice looking. They are a simple, elegant design.

 

[Harp]

I used to be scared of the Bear Alignment sign when I was very young. Just look at it!

View attachment 344052
Why is his face like that? Why is his mouth lolling open? Why is he cockeyed? Why is he standing in a red puddle of blood? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

Looks more Boobi than Yogi, definitely not Smokey.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Those Mobil pumps were called "Scrip-tops." The lettering in the top piece was milk glass, fitted into cutouts, and lit up by a bulb inside, with the whole assembly fitted over the top of the pump where a globe would ordinarily go. The Socony/Mobil station at the end of my childhood street had these, and when lit up at night they made a very impressive display.

I used to ask my grandfather why our station didn't have pumps like that, and he probably gave me some sarcastic answer. But only Mobil and Sunoco, of the major companies, are known to have used them.

 

[BobHufford]

On Route 66 between Heatonville and Albatross, Missouri.

 

[tonyb]

Gotta wonder what effect the transition to electric cars (it’s happening, Ned, like it it not) will have on the market for vintage gas pumps, which, last I looked into it, was looking pretty healthy.

Most of us here are old enough to remember when pre-automobile transportation memorabilia — wood-spoked wagon wheels, etc. — adorned rec rooms and country eateries. It can still be found here and there (I know of a meat-and-potatoes joint decorated with antique farm implements and the like) but it’s nowhere near as prevalent as it was. The decline pretty much coincided with the dying off of the people with firsthand recollections of that stuff being in daily use.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It usually takes about a hundred and twenty five to a hundred and fifty years for something to pass, for all intents and purposes, completely out of social memory. We can know, from books, what everyday life was like for people during the late 19th Century -- but we have to make a special effort to do that. There is little chance that any randomly-selected person you meet on the street in 2021 is going to have any notion of the everyday mores of the 1870s. There is no one left alive on Earth with actual memories of living in that period, and even those who personally knew people who did have those memories are dying off at a rapid pace. Very soon, they too will be extinct.

That seems to be the limit -- the death first of the "first hand generation" that experienced any particular period followed by the death of the "echo generation" that followed them. That process is well underway now for "The Era," and you can expect it to be completed within the next forty years. By 2060 or so, the 1920s-40s will no longer be any part of "living memory." By the end of this century, the "Boomer era" and all of its cultural artifacts will be mostly forgotten and completely irrelevant.

By that time the typical gas station will be to them what a livery stable or a blacksmith shop is to us today -- they might be aware that it existed, but unless they've seen a reenactment of one at a historical site somwhere, they'll have very little sense or awareness of what was actually done at one. And the artifacts of one will be as unrecognizable to them as any random 19th century farm implement is to us today.

Time, as they used to say in 1937, Marches On.

 

[tonyb]

Still standing in Shelbyville, Kentucky, according to the site I lifted these photos from …

 

[tonyb]

It usually takes about a hundred and twenty five to a hundred and fifty years for something to pass, for all intents and purposes, completely out of social memory. We can know, from books, what everyday life was like for people during the late 19th Century -- but we have to make a special effort to do that. There is little chance that any randomly-selected person you meet on the street in 2021 is going to have any notion of the everyday mores of the 1870s. There is no one left alive on Earth with actual memories of living in that period, and even those who personally knew people who did have those memories are dying off at a rapid pace. Very soon, they too will be extinct.

That seems to be the limit -- the death first of the "first hand generation" that experienced any particular period followed by the death of the "echo generation" that followed them. That process is well underway now for "The Era," and you can expect it to be completed within the next forty years. By 2060 or so, the 1920s-40s will no longer be any part of "living memory." By the end of this century, the "Boomer era" and all of its cultural artifacts will be mostly forgotten and completely irrelevant.

By that time the typical gas station will be to them what a livery stable or a blacksmith shop is to us today -- they might be aware that it existed, but unless they've seen a reenactment of one at a historical site somwhere, they'll have very little sense or awareness of what was actually done at one. And the artifacts of one will be as unrecognizable to them as any random 19th century farm implement is to us today.

Time, as they used to say in 1937, Marches On.

Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

I’m receptive to the argument that there is an innate human aesthetic sensibility. Echoes of the ancients are found in our contemporary arts and architecture and pretty much everything of human creation.

Good stuff is good stuff, whatever its era or “school.”

As we’ve chewed over before, our modern take on how our not-so-distant ancestors lived generally tells us more about ourselves than them. Very few homes in 1939 were furnished in a “deco” manner, for instance, and certainly not exclusively so.

 

[tonyb]

Has this been posted before?

 

[BobHufford]

Springfield, Missouri. This wasn't listed as a colorized photo, so maybe traffic has been light and that is grass and not mis-colored gravel. Anyone know what "Power" at 11-1/2 cents is?

 

[Woodtroll]

Springfield, Missouri. This wasn't listed as a colorized photo, so maybe traffic has been light and that is grass and not mis-colored gravel. Anyone know what "Power" at 11-1/2 cents is?

I'm pretty sure that photo has been colorized and maybe even doctored a little further. On blow-up, that sure looks like green gravel, and some of the greens in the trees are off, and the two D-X signs don't match. The margins around the closer sign look suspiciously sharp.

Regardless, it's a really interesting photo because of all that's going on in the frame. A neat mix of older cars, but an established grid of power and phone lines makes me wonder exactly when this was taken. And I'm curious about the economical "Power" fuel, as well!

Thanks for posting this, much appreciated.

 

[BobHufford]

^^^^^ This version just popped up ...

 

[LizzieMaine]

Power is sub-regular brand of "Fighting Gas." Most oil companies had a brand of unadvertised, unpromoted fuel they featured as a loss leader during price wars. They hinted that these were cheaply-refined, lesser-quality grades, but this was actually a form of reverse-marketing designed to steer the motorist toward the more expensive grades. In fact, as Consumers Union found thru lab testing, the "fighting gas" brands were generally of equivalent quality to the name-brand regular grades -- and one, Shell's "Green Streak," was equivalent to that company's *premium* grade.

 

[Fading Fast]

Power is sub-regular brand of "Fighting Gas." Most oil companies had a brand of unadvertised, unpromoted fuel they featured as a loss leader during price wars. They hinted that these were cheaply-refined, lesser-quality grades, but this was actually a form of reverse-marketing designed to steer the motorist toward the more expensive grades. In fact, as Consumers Union found thru lab testing, the "fighting gas" brands were generally of equivalent quality to the name-brand regular grades -- and one, Shell's "Green Streak," was equivalent to that company's *premium* grade.

Not unlike how "house brands" are often the exact same product just cheaper, but there is also a "hint" that they are of inferior ingredients. You see this in over-the-counter drugs/medicine all the time as the active ingredient is usually the exact same. Heck, often times the label is all but a duplicate, just rearranged a bit.

 

[Bushman]

Whatever gave you that idea?

"Must be under 190lbs to use this bathroom."