Folks Of Interest gas stations were around when you started to drive?

I got my fresh driver's license in '59 and with a little pleading occasionally drove the older of the 2 family cars ('54 Pontiac)...... until I bought my own car when I was 18. We had Texico, Sinclair, City Service, but the best gas price was at an independent called Road Pilot. It was gas only; no repairs or parts, etc. They had their own trading stamps but I don't recollect what or where you got the premiums. You could take the stamps or tell the attendant to "Put the stamps in the tank", which got you a few pennies more in the tank. Naturally, we always opted for the extra ounces of gas.
Not everyone had a car so those who did usually had a bouquet of ride-alongs. It was sort of an unspoken understanding that at some point in the evening we were going to stop at Road Pilot and announce a 'cash call' for pocket change to buy some fuel. Sometimes it was only 50 cents but that was enough for 2 gallons to continue the night's shenanigans.

 

Arizona guys will remember Blakely gas stations...had a continuity program for loyalty users offering frosted
glass tumblers and glass pitchers. This was in the 50's and 60's. Very collectible today...

 

Worked at a Phillips 66 when I first started driving in the mid-1970s. Still have the shirt.

John

 

Yep & gas was 25 cents a gal.

 

My hometown had 3 service stations, Shell, Mobile, and Texaco when I was young. The Shell station was Delea's, father and son ran it, I hung around and old Sam put those who hung around to work. Hall's Garage was the Mobile station that had been a livery stable before cars. And the Texaco station was Robinson's. Delea's was on the north side of town, Hall's was in the center of town behind the drug store. And Robinson's was on the south side of town.

Sam Delea Jr and my brother went to school together, 2 of the Hall's sons went to school with me. I don't remember if Johnie Robinson had children, if so they were older than us.

And yes I remember having to check the oil, wash the windows, check the pressure in the tires, and the water level in the battery. If the engine wasn't too hot, even check its water level.

And on occasion for special customers, wash and Simonize their car. And if they really liked the results, we could get a really huge tip. This was late 60's early 70's when minimum wage was about $1.65. When 2 of us each got 20 bucks one Sunday, we were happy as pigs in...

Ahhh those were the days!

 

Hello,

When I went away to college at San Jose State in 1965, I lived at 545 S. 7th street. It is still there today. It looks like the same color palette as in 1965. I had been accustomed to going to the local Chevron dealer in Long Beach, but the closest Chevron dealer I found in San Jose was too far away to just go get gas.

So, down the street, under the overpass, was a small gas station that I can’t remember the no name dealer. But, today, it turned into a Chevron dealer. Back then, it was a dinky no name gas station and the gas was just as good as Chevron miles away.

For as much driving as I did weekly, a full gas tank lasted quite a long time. My daily commute to the campus was a block and a half. So, the El Camino sat all day and sometimes, all night until the weekend. Then it was off to San Francisco, Berkeley and of course Santa Cruz through the Southern mountains.

Jnaki

While I was learning to drive back in Long Beach at age 15.5, most big name gas stations were around every neighborhood. They were almost like the current Starbuck Coffee Shops. On the major cross streets, all four corners had gas stations. Sometimes there were three, and the 4th was a burger place. It was a time and place for driving and there were plenty of gas stations around to serve plenty of new and old drivers.

The most popular were the Chevron/Standard Gas Stations, then Texaco. Mobil was usually the third choice. Down by the coastline beach cities, Richfield was popular. Especially in Dana Point. That station is still there, but now called a different name ARCO, but still owned by the mother company. They know a great location when they see/owned it.

When we used to come back up the coast from our teenage surf trips, we would stop there, and fill up for the long trek up Coast Highway along the coastline. It was also across the street from the Doheny Beach location and was a popular stopping point north. If the afternoon "glass-off" was starting, then it was one last stop to surf in front of those tall Dana Point cliffs. (no harbor at the time)

No gas crisis and no competition for long lines like we had to do in the 70s with the world oil problems. During the late 50s and early 60s, gas was relatively inexpensive and very plentiful, everywhere.

 

I worked part time at a Sunoco station in Northern Ontario in high school. Everyone was shocked when the price of regular (our 200 at the time, 190 came later) went up to .49 cents a gallon. I rode a Honda 305 so I didn’t care but they all acted like the world was coming to an end. The station was near a major highway so we got lots of interesting cars through. Our orders were to ask “fill it up?”, wash all the windows and get under the hood right away. An employee was judged by how many oil filler caps they could sell, the ones with the filter inside that plugged up. We kept lots of these in stock. And I could easily find the gas filler on anything that came in, not everyone could. There were all the other station brands too, all full service, no self serve, no off brands.

 

We had a Gas-a-mat self-serve on the outskirts of town, next door was a quarter car wash, & across the road, the 10 laps for fifty cents go-kart track. The Gas-a-mat was 24 hr. - had a cashier during the day, after hours, you used Gas-a-mat $1 tokens you'd bought in advance. Their premium was one of the only brands that wouldn't ping in the 10.25 Pontiacs.
Every night was a show .. the kids loved the "watch me light em up out of the car wash !''

 

i worked at a gulf station 16 years old in 77/78, but we had tex-gas, shell, conaco, texaco, shamrock, st. clair, exxon, union 76, phillips 66, fina as well as 7/11, stop n go and others i just don't remember

 

Can't forget SOC stations and Enmark and Rayco stations or.............is that 'too Southern' fer y'all?!
6sally6

 

I moved back to where I grew up in 1986. Most of the small gas stations are gone, eaten up by strip malls or highway renovations. I can still point out the locations to people. One had a chronic leaky gas tank in the ground, I recall the owner pumping the water out of the bottom after a good rain. He dumped it right next to the property line.

 

My father's Chevron station. The end service bay had a grease pit and an entrance high enough for trucks to enter. The middle bay had a hoist for lube work. The other was used for tire and wheel alignment service. There was a car wash area outside next to the large bay. I believe there were around 5 or 6 gas stations in this small town in the 60's. Now there are two and they are mini-mart types, no services provided.

 

Worked at a Skelly when I was a kid. Good times!

 

Off the top of my head, just thinking about what was in our area, or areas we frequented: shell, skelly, pure, standard, deep rock, clark, texaco, phillips 66, mobile, gulf.

 

Remember these?

 

In '58 I bought my first car -- a 1/4-ton Model A pickup -- for $49.90. (He wanted $50.00 and I came up short.) I lived a block from a "Hudson" gas station with 3 rows of pumps. Cars had 2 lanes and were 28.9ç a gallon, trucks had 1 lane and were 27.9ç. I'd pull up to the truck pumps for 78ç or more worth and the guy would go ballistic -- said "That's no truck!"

 

- OAK -
I pumped gas at this one in Rochester Michigan for a while in the early 80s, during some of its last days. Just a dinky little place. The last true service station around with full serve. I remember Christmas Eve, cars lined up way down the street, I had all eight pumps running at the same time. No exaggeration. I was young and fast and everybody seemed to enjoy watching me running around like a madman. I didn't mind it either. Had a good time with everybody and I stayed warm. LOL

Oops... looks like I posted twice on this thread. I'm getting to be the old guy who tells the same stories over and over and over and over...

 

In SoCal Los Angeles area in the 50s and 60s we had Union 76, Standard, Chevron, Mobil, Shell, Richfield, Texaco, Flying A, Signal, Mohawk, Hancock, Harbor, Ben Hur, Seaside. Our neighborhood independent was SunCo, not Sonoco. They had their own stamps. Fill the book and get something like, 5 gallons, for free. SunCo always had a sign proclaiming "GAS WAR" we never knew who they were at war with but they must have won since their gas was always the cheapest

 

We used to rent a construction yeard from a Seaside distributor, then they were bought out by Phillips 66, then Exxon. Try this one- AGWAY

 

When I was a sophomore in high school in 1962 I think there were 23 gas stations in town with a population of 5000 people. The town was and still is a hub for farm and ranch people in the area though. Now there are 8 but they have twice (and maybe more) pumps than all 23 did then. Only one of the 8 even has a lube bay or hoist now and they don't do customer work there.
Back in the day it was Shell (my dad worked for the distributor in the early 50's) Standard/Chevron, Texaco, Exxon. Phillips 66 and Union 76 plus the Beeline discount station. I never worked in any of them but helped a couple of buddies at a couple of the stations so I could use the hoist in the evening, My buddy's dad didn't care as he got free labor for my car being on his hoist for a couple of hours.

 

"Upsell the TBA". Rosemead, CA in 1965 worked at Herb Hunter's Exxon corner of Garvey and Puente and Gene Scott's Shell at the Walnut Grove exit from the San Bernardino Fwy. Both Herb and Gene kept pilferage down by paying a percentage on all TBA to both the mechanics in the shops out back and the front guys on the islands. There were lots of weeks I'd make as much from that percentage as I did from my hours. We didn't have to send off to a parts house for a hose or belt, they were already hanging on the wall. Tire were usually in stock for anything that came in until the Goodyear Double Eagles came along around 1966. They were the sorriest tires we had ever sold. It seems that for the first year they were forced on us, for every set we sold, we replaced at least two tires.

 

That look kind of familiar... what town and where was it located?

 

Town of Forks, Olympic Peninsula. Can't miss it. 5 miles south of Sappho, 30 miles north of Queets.

 

One of my first jobs was at a 76 station, super old school, that had been there forever. Still there, same family still owns it! Their only son is a good friend to this day. When we were kids it was kind of a one horse town so they sold all kinds of stuff. Chainsaws, arctic cat sleds, mini bikes, etc. There is still tons of that stuff back there piled in the old showroom. A few cool cars back there as well, muscle cars tho, not hamb Era.

 

When I was a kid, back about 1968, the coolest station in our small town was the Atlantic. The mechanics there had some great rides. Clair had a light yellow ‘55 150 two door ,283”, 2x4 ,four speed and a ‘63 split saddle/tan ,340 hp ,with “D” spokes. Omar had a ‘64 Vette vert, white/white ,300hp, with Ansen 5 spokes. Gary had a ‘62 Imp vert, red/red, 409/425, AP 5spokes and Steve had a ‘65 Sport Fury black/black , built 440”, 4spd, with the first 10” aluminum slots and M&H’s I had ever seen. It was an awesome place for a hot rod crazy kid to hang out. I got wild rides in most of them.

 

More in line with what the thread asked, here is my ‘32 sitting at the local Exxon ; when I started driving in 1973. My OT ‘69 “X” can be seen parked in the background behind her.

439925.jpg by bowie posted Jan 13, 2013 at 8:29 PM

439923.jpg by bowie posted Jan 13, 2013 at 8:26 PM

 

I've seen several of you guys talk about Exxon stations from back in the day, and that messed with my memory, we had Enco stations around here, which I remembered they later became Exxon. Or was my memory wrong?

So a quick internet search turned up the facts. Enco & Esso were the brand names used at the stations owned by Humble Oil. It was through a merger with Standard Oil of New Jersey that they were then re-branded as Exxon, that wasn't until 1973. At least that's what Wikipedia says. That would jibe with my memory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enco_(brand)

 

You're right about the Enco stations. My memory lets me down on occasion. Herb Hunter's was an Enco, not Exxon. Durn, now I'm depressed

 

That would also jive, with my 1973 photo. I remember our local Esso, changing their signs to Exxon. Put a tiger in your tank! Happy motoring…