Didn't mean to leave you all hanging like that. Just took a couple of days for a "Spring Vacation" with the family and got back today.

Part III, The Wheeler's Inn at the Barnsdall-Rio Grande Station

The Goleta station was the flagship of the operation but there were other less elaborate vessels flying the Rio Grande flag in Santa Barbara as well as at points north and south in Santa Barbara County.



Like many stations along the coast highway, it made sense to add a diner to feed the travelers making their way up and down the coast of California. Initially the little eatery was called the “Spud Inn” as a play on the oilman’s term for starting a new oil well. Eventually, Laurence and Hilda Wheeler took over operation of the eatery and the name was changed to “Wheeler’s Inn”, a perfectly appropriate name for a restaurant attached to a service station.

The Wheeler’s lived on the property and after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, added a liquor store to the operation so that drivers could gas up and “get gassed” at the same time.

Another significant change occurred during the depression in 1932 when Barnsdall-Rio Grande merged with the Sinclair Consolidated Oil Co.. Five years later, as the Depression set in, the conglomerate would become a principal stockholder of the previously bankrupt Richfield Oil Corporation. Despite these changes there was little change at the Barnsdall-Rio Grande station at Ellwood, still operating under the original colors with its original design intact.

Perhaps the most interesting event surrounding the Ellwood service station occurred in February of 1942 when a lone Japanese submarine lobbed a shell onto the shores of Ellwood beach, the only attack on American soil during World War II. This attack primarily had the effect of almost entirely eliminating the use of gas pump globes on the West Coast due to mandatory blackouts along shores of California. This elimination of what would later become a Petroliana commodity would frustrate western collectors for decades to come. (There are practically no globes to collect in California!)

Although the Rio Grande Companies logo was rather bland, they had one of the most architecturally significant service stations ever created. Their early maps were also artistically beautiful featuring a rendering of the “Queen of the Missions”, the Santa Barbara Mission of California.



After World War II the highway was re-routed, as in many parts of California, and this historic station was left on a siding too far from the business that it needed to survived. The station ceased operation in 1950, but was used as a small bulk plant and card lock station after that until the early 70’s ending the run of the Rio Grande on the shores of Ellwood in Santa Barbara County.

What will become of this station now? Stay tuned for a current status report and the end (or is it the beginning?) of the story!

[This message has been edited by the poor mans museum (edited 04-11-2006).]

C Cragg