Old gas stations

[2jakes]

“Oh the weather outside is frightful....”

“We’ll leave the lights on for you!"

 

[2jakes]

 

[Benzadmiral]

I miss Woolworth’s and Sears Roebuck
and a time when downtown had clocks on the street corners.
The main street was decorated with Christmas lights but
only after Thanksgiving not before and Christmas trees were
real and not expensive.
View attachment 82768

That looks like a 1939 or '40 Ford.

 

[Benzadmiral]

View attachment 82720

Something about this suggests New Mexico ("Regalo Curios" and the sign for Carta Blanca beer). Albuquerque has a Frontier diner on Central Avenue, old Route 66, and has for many decades; but Central would have been much wider than this. The sharp shadows give a feeling of the dry Western air, maybe in winter.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The S (which stood for "Service") card was abolished in late 1942 due to illegal manipulation of that ration on the East Coast -- an S card was issued legally only to taxicabs and commercial vehicles, allowing unlimited fuel to these services, but too many holders of this ration were using it to fuel their personal vehicles instead. It became a very common scam for S card holders to take the back seat out of their regular car and paint the name of their business on the doors -- turning their personal car into a "service vehicle." By the time gas rationing went national on December 1st, the S card had been eliminated.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Rob

 

[2jakes]

Something about this suggests New Mexico ("Regalo Curios" and the sign for Carta Blanca beer). Albuquerque has a Frontier diner on Central Avenue, old Route 66, and has for many decades; but Central would have been much wider than this. The sharp shadows give a feeling of the dry Western air, maybe in winter.

This entry was posted in Auto Photos and tagged 1950s Cars and Trucks
Nogales, Arizona.
A US and Mexico border town with plenty of cross-border traffic.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Rob

The Gulf station looks so much like the one that was in my home town -- the angle, the design, the landscape, everything -- that I had to look very close to be sure it wasn't in fact it. The only difference is that extension thing to the left of the main building, which ours didn't have. The building in my town is still standing, but is unrecognizable after having been turned into a pizza joint in the 1990s.

 

[Fading Fast]

Rob

"Blue Chip Stamps?" Anyone familiar with what, I'm guessing, was an S&H Green Stamps competitor?

Awesome Vette, and isn't she a pip?

 

[Ghostsoldier]

"She was hotter than a two dollar pistol, she was the fastest thing around."

Rob

 

[Benzadmiral]

"She was hotter than a two dollar pistol, she was the fastest thing around."

Rob

And the car was pretty sharp too!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Blue Chip was S&H's top competitor during the trading stamp craze of the 1960s. Others were Gold Bond, Top Value, and Plaid Stamps. We gave out Top Value -- with redemption books featuring their cartoon mascot Toppie The Elephant -- and I've still got a few loose stamps in my desk drawer at home.

Toppie was a *plaid* elephant wearing a tam-o-shanter, which, along with rival "Plaid Stamps," played on the "thrifty Scotchman" stereotype to suggest the value of the stamps. At least they didn't draw him wearing a kilt.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Blue Chip was S&H's top competitor during the trading stamp craze of the 1960s. Others were Gold Bond, Top Value, and Plaid Stamps. We gave out Top Value -- with redemption books featuring their cartoon mascot Toppie The Elephant -- and I've still got a few loose stamps in my desk drawer at home.

Toppie was a *plaid* elephant wearing a tam-o-shanter, which, along with rival "Plaid Stamps," played on the "thrifty Scotchman" stereotype to suggest the value of the stamps. At least they didn't draw him wearing a kilt.

I remember Gold Bell... there was a "Gold Bond," too?

 

[ChiTownScion]

I remember Gold Bell... there was a "Gold Bond," too?

View attachment 83161

Answering my own question, after further research... evidently, yes. The two look amazingly similar.

 

[2jakes]

My mother had a drawer in the kitchen filled with books of S&H and Gold Bond
stamps.

 

[2jakes]

Red Crown Tavern (and gas station)

Early 1950s photo taken by Richard Klasinski at the time it was owned and operated
by Frank and Lucy Klasinski. It shows the cabins on the left.

Bonnie, Clyde and W.D. Jones stayed in the cabin on the left and
Buck and Blanche occupied the cabin on the right.

 

[2jakes]

"Fuel up the Ford Clyde”

Station attendants wait to pump gas in front of the Red Crown Tavern
circa 1933

 

[2jakes]

RED CROWN HIDEOUT

"Clyde chose the Red Crown Tavern as an ideal "hideout." It's location between two intersecting highways provided an easy escape route if needed. They rented two single-story brick cabins. Between them were two wide garages - a convenient place to stash their stolen car. The raid on the cabins started at eleven o'clock.The officers ordered the group out. Blanche told them to wait while they got dressed.

Clyde responded by firing on them with his powerful Browning automatic rifle.
Sheriff Coffey was hit in the neck and the steel-jacketed bullets sliced through
the armored police car.

Buck ran outside and began spraying the area with bullets from his automatic rifle.
Buck, hit by Captain William Baxter and severely wounded, was dragged into the back of the car.
The police opened fire on Barrow's getaway car, blinding Blanche with flying glass.

The gang made their getaway, but at a heavy cost to all.
Bonnie and Clyde had escaped the barrage of bullets, leaving Sheriff Holt Coffey,
son Clarence and a Jackson County Deputy Sheriff all wounded.”

PLATTE COUNTY COURTHOUSE.
JULY 20, 1933 SHOOT-OUT

 

[2jakes]

Blanche Barrow Captured!

"After nearly getting caught after checking into a cabin in Missouri, the group of five escaped with injuries including a massive headshot to Buck Barrow's skull. After being on the run for five days, the group stopped to camp in Dexter, Iowa but were quickly surrounded again after local residents noticed their bloody wounds. The group came under fire as Bonnie, Clyde and Jones escaped while Buck was shot and his wife Blanche was arrested, pictured here. Buck died five days later from his injuries."
~Daily News~

 

[2jakes]

Shell 1941