Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Filling Station

You didn't wind up with that, did you? I was interested but dismantling and transportation would have been cost prohibitive.

First, Butler made many things, tankers, gas pumps, complete stations, and building like the one above. This is not a Standard pre-fab building, it a Butler made filling station building, it just appears that Standard was the last one to use it.

Second, the Standard sign may be worth more than the building. And what is inside the building? There may be something inside it that may be worth more than the building.

Third, as Stu mentionded above, the cost of dismantling and moving may be so much, that maybe they should be paying you just to get it off the property. You could dismantle this building, but you would have to mark every part, take a ton of pictures, just to be able to put it back together. Here is a picture from my website that show a similiar building that was moved without taking it apart: http://petrolianacollectibles.com/steve_gold.htm

This type of building is something that should be donated to the local historical society, put in a historical place, restored, have gas pumps put outside, and be available for everyone to see what a filling station looked like back in the 1920s.

The best example of this is the historical park that Dayton, Ohio has. They devoted a park to the history of Dayton. Every day, school buses of children come to the park to see the history. Included in the park are:
The original building (they moved it to the park) where the Wright brothers had their bicycle shop and where they conceived their idea for the first airplane.
An original building housing at least one Dayton locomotive.
An original dealership, with cars, for the Stoddard-Dayton automobile.
An original Sunoco (I may be wrong about the brand) building, a much nicer than one shown above, and with two American (made in Dayton) visible gas pumps out front.

This is the greatest display of industrial history I have ever seen.

The Museum of Transportation, here in St. Louis County, has a porcelain, 1950s style, Phillips 66 station, replaced to their property. The big kicker is that it once stood on Rt. 66 going out of St. Louis. I donated one gas pump for it yeasrs ago and a ton of Phillips 66 items (air, gas & oil filters, etc.) for the inside of the building.

I am sure, somewhere in my 41 file drawers of service station literature I have something on this building. I need a commitment to purchase it before I start looking for it.

Jack Sim

Dewdude,

Not trying to be smart, but you haven't even told us what state you are in.

Jack Sim

Very cool acquisition! I would love to have it. Maybe if you put it on a Low boy trailer it wont be too high. If it wasnt over 13 foot, I would just go for it. You can do it!If it was easy anyone could do it! LOL!

Post pic's of its voyage whenever you do it...

Post pic's of its voyage whenever you do it...

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.

Don "oltoydoc" Sherwood

The whole trip went without a hitch.

Hey Dew,did Pepsi mind using their truck? This will look kool when you are done. Will be nice to be able to drive by and look. Looks like you were on Hwy.136 in some of the pics.Thats not a real wide road!

Nicole, Bob needs one for his Cati.

Mike, I wanted to add, how did you move it without loosing/breaking some of the glass panels? I would imagine there was a lot of flex in the building...

Should be nice when you get finished. We will have to stop and see it.

Pretty cool. Im in the Hannibal/Palmyra area. Next time we are through Memphis we'll have to stop and check it out