The Neatest Gas Station You Have Ever Seen

We have this photo of the most unsual filling station we have ever seen up today. Stop by The Old Motor where we have four enlargements and full details about the company.

If you can fill in any details please let us know.

That one is impressive. The owner's last name (Cheatham) isn't really one that goes well for someone in business.

I think the filling station that Frank Lloyd Wright designed in Minnesota is even better.

That one is impressive. The owner's last name (Cheatham) isn't really one that goes well for someone in business.

I think the filling station that Frank Lloyd Wright designed in Minnesota is even better.

West....Do you have any photos of the Frank Lloyd Wright station?

I thought the same thing, who would by gas from Ed Cheatham??

West....Do you have any photos of the Frank Lloyd Wright station?

I thought the same thing, who would by gas from Ed Cheatham??

... or tires... or....

The Frank Lloyd Write station has many, many website photos. Actually, after taking another look, I like the one you posted better. The roof design of the Wright station in Cloquet, Minnesota is nice, but the rest of the station is... as the kids say these days... meh.

Wasn't that the old Three Stooges law firm...Dewey, Cheatam and Howe???

One of our favorite gas station photos, a Socony gas station in Geneva, New York, 1928.

If you enjoy gas station photos there are 100's of great gas station photos on The Old Motor.

Photo above of the Frank Lloyd Wright station above from minnesota.publicradio.org

Below are two very interesting professional videos all about it.

Looks lousy, just like everything else that bum designed. Too bad he didn't think to put the gas pumps under the awning where it would have done some good. What's with the stair case to the glassed in second story observation deck giving an unobstructed view of.... the gas pumps. At least that roof looks like it will shed water. If it does, that makes it the only roof he ever designed that didn't leak.

Frank Lloyd Wright, the most over rated architect in America.

Looks lousy, just like everything else that bum designed. Too bad he didn't think to put the gas pumps under the awning where it would have done some good. What's with the stair case to the glassed in second story observation deck giving an unobstructed view of.... the gas pumps. At least that roof looks like it will shed water. If it does, that makes it the only roof he ever designed that didn't leak.

Frank Lloyd Wright, the most over rated architect in America.

Rusty...if you watch the second video about the station, you will notice that it was the fire department's idea to have the pumps out there on their own. Wright wanted the hoses to hang from the canopy. The videos also explain the upstairs lounge as a gathering place for conversation and coffee. As an architectural career person, I can say that I have studied Frank Lloyd Wright and yes...his buildings had issues. Yes, he is overrated a bit, but his designs are very futuristic for their time.

I have heard that Jim Sandoro in Buffalo, NY has the Frank Lloyd Wright plans for a gas station that was to be built in Buffalo. It was a project that the financial means could not be secured for, back then and Jims heroic efforts to build the station suffered the same problems as the original subscriber whom commissioned Wright. I also think Jim may have a model of the finished project --Bob

Wright may be an overrated architect, but the most overrated?? I guess that's an opinion, so I will disagree. I'm not sure I'd even consider his name for one of the top 10 overrated architects.

Lots of things are overrated: Ferrari 250GTOs are overrated. And now, with a perceived value of $35 million, I'd say the 250GTO is the most overrated automobile ever. Personally, I find the car visually dumpy looking. There are so many better looking and better driving Ferrari's that I'm not sure I'd stop walking if I saw one parked across the street (well, maybe momentarily just to try and figure if it was real or not). I certainly wouldn't cross to get a closer look.

Meh!

This photo was taken in 1956 and the station supposedly still exits in Boise Idaho. You can see a larger

photo with our old gas station photos on page 14

I do remember one Wright house in Pasadena always being covered in tarps for the common leaking roof, and of course some concrete crumbled, etc., but as an architect, where design is his primary face to the public, it is truly all about context. The innovative specially-patterned bricks, and to a lesser but to me more impressive note, the furniture he designed, all were light years ahead of his contemporaries. Like people who defame Warhol today, those who judge Wright in a harsh light tend to forget that before he did it, it simply hadn't been done before and the reason why it doesn't shock or amaze some of us today is because those designs and artworks have been appropriated so much since in popular culture that we don't even realize where it originated.

On the topic at hand, I always loved this 76 station in Beverly Hills, around "Little" Santa Monica Blvd. and Crescent. I always bought gas down the road near the Farmer's Market since it was so much cheaper, but what a statement it makes.

A press photo is showing an attendant checking the gas level during a gas station strike at a station on Greenfield St.,

in Detroit. Photo dated as Apr 30,1952.

"I do remember one Wright house in Pasadena always being covered in tarps for the common leaking roof, and of course some concrete crumbled, etc., but as an architect, where design is his primary face to the public, it is truly all about context."

It's the context thing that bothers me too. Like the 14 story office block with a penthouse apartment he designed for a small town businessman. The owner didn't want an apartment and didn't need it. His sister lived in it for a few months but didn't like it, that is the only time it was ever used. This was in a small town in the midwest where nobody built over 2 stories because there was lots of cheap land. The building was completely out of step with its environment and with the customer's needs. But since when did the great Frank Lloyd Wright care about things like that.

Or the wonderful Johnson's Wax building. The floor space was filled with pillars that flared out into discs at the top with the spaces in between filled with glass blocks. It was supposed to remind you of sitting on the bottom of a lily pond, looking up at the floating leaves. What this had to do with the wax business, nobody could ever figure out. Of course the roof leaked like a sieve just like every other roof he ever made so when it rained everyone scrambled around for pots and waste baskets to catch the water. It also meant the floor space was cluttered with pillars just when every other architect in America was going to the open floor plan office. So it was not only a mess, it was obsolete and inefficient from the very first day. Once again, he couldn't care less how out of context it was.

Or the amazing Falling Water. That was a doozy. He had 40 acres and a stream to work with so he put the house ON TOP of the stream. Nothing like a permanent wet basement, or no basement, and cantilevered beams that started cracking as soon as the check cleared the bank.

At one time I was taken in by his bullshit too. All I heard was how great Frank Lloyd Wright was. Then I got into the home repair business and got some insight into the way houses were designed and built. After that I read the accounts of his houses with a new slant. Every account I read by people who lived in his houses or lived with his other buildings stressed how it was worth all the drawbacks and expense to have one of his creations. I'm afraid I just can't see it. Bad design is bad design no matter how much bullshit goes with it.

Take another look at that gas station of his. If someone told me it was drawn in crayon by the 12 year old son of the owner and built on a whim I could totally believe it.

"Like people who defame Warhol today, those who judge Wright in a harsh light tend to forget that before he did it, it simply hadn't been done before "

Maybe it hadn't been done before, and hasn't been done since, because it sucked.

Every account I read by people who lived in his houses or lived with his other buildings stressed how it was worth all the drawbacks and expense to have one of his creations. I'm afraid I just can't see it. Bad design is bad design no matter how much bullshit goes with it.

To be clear, I never said I'd actually *live* in one of his houses. lol They do perhaps look better on paper than in the flesh. Maybe he would have made a better artist than a designer. I do not disagree with most of your statements, I just appreciate his artistic mind which has no practical element, art is abstract in every form.

Women attendants help pump gas at the Airport gas station in Los Angeles during 1947.

To be clear, I never said I'd actually *live* in one of his houses. lol They do perhaps look better on paper than in the flesh. Maybe he would have made a better artist than a designer. I do not disagree with most of your statements, I just appreciate his artistic mind which has no practical element, art is abstract in every form.

I wasn't thinking of you, I was thinking of all the interviews and stories that included the views of owners and occupants of his buildings.

As far as the art thing goes, the only way I could go along with that is if his buildings looked good but were never built. Unfortunately too many were built, and they didn't even look that hot.

I am waiting for PICTURES of the homes YOU designed, YES, YOU, the ones that have said nothing good about Mr. Wright.

I have been in approx. 12 of his homes, and for the most part was very pleased. I have yet to view any home that EVERYONE liked, may be that you live in a home that your neighbors don't care for too, that's reality folks.

Dale in Indy

the neatest gas station that i have ever seen is in milwaukie, oregon, you drove your car under a B-17G bomber which was mounted on concrete stands, putting the bomber more than high enough for cars and pick up trucks to drive under to pull up next to the pumps. the bomber is going thru a restoration currently, i had breakfast at the bomber resturant with 1953 pontiac friend jim landrum, the food was great. charles coker, 1953 pontiac tech advisor.

the neatest gas station that i have ever seen is in milwaukie, oregon, you drove your car under a B-17G bomber which was mounted on concrete stands, putting the bomber more than high enough for cars and pick up trucks to drive under to pull up next to the pumps. the bomber is going thru a restoration currently, i had breakfast at the bomber resturant with 1953 pontiac friend jim landrum, the food was great. charles coker, 1953 pontiac tech advisor.

_____________________________________________________________

As an ex-military pilot, I agree ... This is the coolest gas station on planet earth !!!

How many felonies would this guy be charged with today?

Shortly after WWII a guy named Art Lacey went to <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:place w:st="on">Kansas</st1:place></st1:State> to buy a surplus B-17. His idea was to fly it back to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">Oregon</st1:State></st1:place>, jack it up in the air and make a gas station out of it. He paid $15,000 for it. He asked which one was his and they said take whichever you want because there were miles of them.

He didn't know how to fly a 4-engine airplane so he read the manual while he taxied around by himself. They said he couldn't take off alone so he put a mannequin in the co-pilot's seat and off he went.

He flew around a bit to get the feel of it and when he went to land he realized he needed a co-pilot to lower the landing gear. He crashed and totaled his plane and another on the ground. They wrote them both off as "wind damaged" and told him to pick out another. He talked a friend into being his co-pilot and off they went.

They flew to <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Palm Springs</st1:place></st1:City> where Lacey wrote a hot check for gas. Then they headed for <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on">Oregon</st1:State></st1:place>. They hit a snow storm and couldn't find their way, so they went down below 1,000 feet and followed the railroad tracks. His partner sat in the nose section and would yell, "TUNNEL" when he saw one and Lacey would climb over the mountain.

They landed safely, he made good the hot check he wrote, and they started getting permits to move a B-17 on the state highway. The highway department repeatedly denied his permit and fought him tooth and nail for a long time, so late one Saturday night, he just moved it himself. He got a $10 ticket from the police for having too wide a load.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>

I read a book a few years ago titled "The Black Dahlia." She had gotten killed in California and the murder was never solved and the author was saying his father did it. The father lived in a Frank Lloyd Wright house and several statements were made about the house and its unique feature but no photos were shown. It sure raised my curiousity. Roanoke VA had a new art museum built a few years ago and that thing is a monstrosity. It is totally out of place in Roanoke and it is also in financial trouble because they over-estimated how many people would come to it. It might look better if it had been built on a mountain top with no other buildings around it but being in downtown Roanoke doesn't work.

Here's one from Freeport, Long Island. Check out the fuels pumps!

This photo shows the postwar make-over version of a station in Oklahoma City from the Donald Ellis collection, looking like a ginger bread house covered with tile. Check out the two glass towers for advertising and merchandise.

the neatest gas station that i have ever seen is in milwaukie, oregon, you drove your car under a B-17G bomber which was mounted on concrete stands, putting the bomber more than high enough for cars and pick up trucks to drive under to pull up next to the pumps. the bomber is going thru a restoration currently, i had breakfast at the bomber resturant with 1953 pontiac friend jim landrum, the food was great. charles coker, 1953 pontiac tech advisor.

Yes, the nose/cockpit has been off for some time, seems a slow restoration as money comes in. It hasn't been a gas station in a while but it would be cool if that was it's use again someday, the diner is still there tho.

As to Wright houses, taste is certainly subjective but I have always found them charming and elegant, especially the Prairie style houses, but where they really shine to me is inside more than out. Just wonderful details and imagination. I even had an artisan design and build a custom table lamp in the Prairie style because of Wright's designs.

We really don't know much about this one and hope that you might know the details of Olympic Gas. Let us know if you do. Looks like they sold as much oil as gas.....

Dan Strohl from Hemmings Daily, found an interesting John Vachon photo that Shorpy posted this week of a migrant fruit worker’s car, taken in July 1940.

There's nothing particularly odd or different with this station, but it's the neatest one for me

since it was my Grandpa Thomas Gibson's and his brother's Good Gulf Service Station. Grandpa is

standing in center in the overalls and dark coat, and its location was somewhere near the

Sabine River on the TX-LA state line, circa 1930. He died in 1953 (1887-1953) before I was born,

but he was a WWI vet who was gassed at some point during the war and lost a lung.

Larger

Gas stations sort of run in my blood, as my Grandpa on my Mom's side had a Standard Oil

station and body/repair shop in Michigan's Upper Peninsula from 1938 to 1954.

Larger

Long closed by the time I came along, I used to sneak in as a kid and over the years

I acquired quite a collection that still exists. The building finally collapsed in the early-

90's and was razed, but what memories (and goodies) it provided!

Larger

Great thread, fantastic images!

TG

TG57Roadmaster, here is one from the old gas station thread a while ago. it was one of my favorites.

forums.aaca.org/f169/ghostly-gas-stations-226404.html

See this thread on the garagejournal website. Fella on there just charge of restoration of a 1920s station chock full of period equipment, signage etc. (MO) im the curator of a 1920's filling station - The Garage Journal Board

gas station

Seeing this station makes one wonder how those guys made a living when gas only sold for 12-15 cents per gallon? They had a few groceries on the shelves, that's true, but gee, how did they manage?

Wayne

Los Angeles area vintage gas stations.

Grandpa

This photo that appears to be from the late 1920's on The Old Motor, is from an unknown location.

They sold both Sinclair and Red Crown Gasoline for visible pumps.

That Good Gulf Gasoline was only 18 CENTS a gallon in this photo. If you can help us date this pump please leave a comment at The Old Motor.

In a quick effort to answer the question, I surfaced the following article from US News. Gasoline averaged .25/gal from 1918-1922, earning those four years a place in the 'ten most expensive years ever' for gasoline in the US. (adjusting for inflation of course)

1. 1918: The 10 Priciest Years for Gas - US News & World Report

This chart shows prices from 1918 which further illustrate this, interestingly gas was never much cheaper than the low .20's since 1918. So photo must be earlier...

Inflation adjusted Gasoline Price Chart

More data, but only goes back to 1919: Rising Gas Prices: How High Has it Gone Over the Years? [CHARTS]

Gotta get back to work but I suspect that a) this is earlier than 1918; it may have been an outlier price- ie this is about as cheap as gas EVER sold in the US.

A gas pump price sign we have here at The Old Motor with prices between 9 and 22 cents and a couple of blanks.

That Good Gulf Gasoline was only 18 CENTS a gallon in this photo. If you can help us date this pump please leave a comment at The Old Motor.

This is a Tokheim 850 "clock face" gas pump. They were made from 1930 until 1939 ( Gas Pump Heaven :: REPRODUCTION PUMPS :: CLOCK FACE PUMPS :: TOKHEIM 850 CLOCK FACE PUMP ). Gas prices averaged around 17 cents/gal. throughout the 1930s, so the pump was very likely brand new when photographed.