Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion I guess a lot of them ended up this way

I was cruising down a local highway in my 69 GTX today and noticed a small out of the way service station that advertized "full service". That in itself is rare today.

I went inside and asked the only guy inside who happened to be working on a set of brakes if he had any old signs he no longer used. In a strong (Pakistani??) accent he said that he didn't have any of those "things".

I then asked him if he might have any old tire pumps and he said that he used to have one on the side of the building but he brought it to the junk yard a few years ago.

Guess I'll have to do some more cruising down the back roads to see if I might get lucky. Anyone have any stories of finding stuff at an old service station?

Every service station around me when I was a boy is long gone...except one.
I recently went in there and talked to the owner,who was a young employee there during the 1960's and now owns the place at age 68.It was originally a Texaco,and is now just a few bays to work on a few cars a month.He is retired and just fiddles to keep himself occupied.Everything "Texaco" is gone..stolen actually,once the price of scrap metal jumped up,except the near mint shiney four stainless steal 1970's Texaco A.O.Smith gas pumps,sitting indoors in a barrier.He pulled those in right away to keep the elements off of them.
Once he was no longer affiliated w/Texaco,somebody backed up a a truck and unbolted his 40 yearold corner Texaco banjo sign and let it fall in the back with it's ass hanging out while they sped off..He came around a few days later,and always thought it was corporate who took it,only to learn later it wasn't them,as they don't do stuff like that at 3am..The ECO,ANCO,Vendo and Reveres were next..uhoh!
I bought the Milton driveway signal bell I used to run over with my Raleigh chopper bicycle as a kid...He said he remembered some boy fitting my description constantly running over that hose occasionally.
He's a really nice man & I hope to acquire the pumps someday too.
Who says you can't go back..

There is a porcelain Texaco station...green and white near here .
It still has the porcelain mens/ ladies restroom signs on it too.
They still service cars there but no longer sell gas...they collect stuff too.
We still have a few SERVICE STATIONS around that sell gas too.

In my community we have 1 real "service station", left. Not sure if it will survive or become a minit mart. Fill the service bays with "coolers and freezers" and wha la a "minit mart is born". We have 4 or 5 "gas stations", 2 of which are operated by Safeway and Fred Meyer Grocery stores. The rest, of what seems to be 1 million boxes, are minit marts.

On another "sortie" I stopped at a building that had that "I used to be a gas station" look. There was what looked like a complete 70s era gas pump sitting against the front wall of the building but nothing else. There was also a shed out back that looked like a work shed. I knocked on the screen door (the inside door was open) but no one answered.

"I'll be back"

There's a junkyard down the road that used to be a Texaco. He still has the banjo sign out front painted over with Alsobrooks Salvage. He will not sell it for nothing. There's an old Sinclair in the middle of town that still has the sign and pole and is painted white. The lady WILL NOT sell it to me because the next person that rents the building will need it to paint their logo on it. Makes me sick!!!! There's also a Dixie station down the road that is complete but closed. I'll try and post some pics later. Oh yea, there's a Pure station in Cedartown and a big Phillips 76 ball on a cantalevered pole and another Pure station down the street in Dallas. There all around me but people won't part with any of it!