I've enjoyed the pump and sign stories, here's one about a whole station. I live in Torrance, Ca. a suburb of Los Angeles. Lot's of people here, and it's hard to find any pumps on the back roads, as there aren't any back roads. About two blocks from my house is a large city park. During WW2 this park was a military supply depot, and some of the old military buildings still stand on one edge of the area, enclosed with a chain link fence. Me being a curious type of guy went snooping around, and found that stuck in the middle of these old buildings, was a Pre-fab gas station from the 1930's. It was painted a gawd awful military color, but it was a one room gas station. It has a really cool front roof line, and lots of glass windows. Well, I had my eye on this old building for several years. Then one day I heard the rumor that the whole complex was to be torn down to make way for a sports complex. I went to the Director of the Parks and Recreation for the City, and offered to remove the building at my own expense thus saving the City some money! (hey, it was worth a try?) Like so many guys that don't have the petro bug, he couldn't understand why I wanted this old rusty, yellow colored building, but said he'd look into it. Sometime later, he told me that the City would sell it to me for $1.00 Well, that was done, and I told him I'd move the building in two weeks. About one week later, he called to let me know that the City Manager had found out about our plan, and had decided that he needed to cancel the deal as the City didn't want to be responsible for any liability if I got hurt moving the building. I convinced the director to lie to the City Mgr. about getting in touch with me, and that since tomorrow was the weekend, it would be moved before next Monday when they all got back to work. Saturday, I unbolted the steel building from the concrete slab, jacked it up and put a 4"x4" "runner" under each side, bolted the building to the wood, and hooked a log chain to the runners. I drug the building the two blocks to my house, down the street and up the alley. When I stopped behind my house, those 4x4's were smoking from the friction. I had to use my torch to cut about two foot off of the back of the building the whole length in order to get it down the 8' wide driveway behind my house. I got it in the back yard, welded it back together and threw a Texaco paint job and a few signs on it. It was made by the Carnige Steel Co. and apparently they sold everything to bolt together your own station. It is about 9'deep and 14' wide. Basically just a building to store small items, and keep the owner/operator dry in between his service. The building has a steel frame that is welded together, and then thick steel panels that would bolt to the frame. It's not the best looking station, but it's cool, it starts many conversations. Just one more "gas station" story! I'll send a photo to Jim to post.
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Don "oltoydoc" Sherwood
