An historic day?

[rgshafto]

According to Garrison Keiler's Writer's Almanac?

"On this day in 1913, the first gas station in the United States opened at the corner of Baum Boulevard and St. Clair Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It sold just thirty gallons of gas the first day it was open, at twenty-seven cents a gallon. It was a brick building with a little pagoda on top, and it offered free air for tires, restrooms, and twenty-four hour service."

$.27/gal is translates to $4.99/gallon today using a Consumer Price Index comparison. So much for the good old days of cheap gas! And how did early car owners get gasoline before the establishment of gas stations in 1913?

[Aanderson44]

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">According to Garrison Keiler's Writer's Almanac?

"On this day in 1913, the first gas station in the United States opened at the corner of Baum Boulevard and St. Clair Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It sold just thirty gallons of gas the first day it was open, at twenty-seven cents a gallon. It was a brick building with a little pagoda on top, and it offered free air for tires, restrooms, and twenty-four hour service."

$.27/gal is translates to $4.99/gallon today using a Consumer Price Index comparison. So much for the good old days of cheap gas! And how did early car owners get gasoline before the establishment of gas stations in 1913? </div></div>

Early on, gasoline was dispensed in cans from general stores, and even pharmacies (no wonder the British call the local drugstore the "Chemists"!) With the coming of the first gas pumps, curbside vending of gasoline was common. but soon was out of favor pretty much everywhere, due to fire safety concerns and the traffic disruptions resulting from drivers standing in line to buy gas. If you think that the "convenience store" format seen everywhere today is something somehow new or modern--many, many small town (and even in small commercial areas of larger towns and cities) general stores put in gas pumps right out front, where only a few years before, the hitching poles waited for customers' horses to be tied up.

In the mid-late teens, there was a flurry of "mobile" gasoline vending--straight from a tank wagon or truck.

Art

[Dave@Moon]

Many places lay claim to "the first gas station". The Gulf Station at Baum & St. Clair is the first "gas station" in the sense that gas was sold from a tank through a dispenser, it was delivered to the location by truck from separate distribution facility, and the building was specifically designed as such. Several "gas stations" existed <span style="font-weight: bold">at</span> refineries and distribution stations prior to 1913, even within Pittsburgh, though not many well-heeled car buyers of that era would deign to visit those areas of town. They usually sold gas to commercial vehicles and trucks. Also some general stores and such sold gas through dispensers as a sideline (dispensing with cans) prior to 1913.

I believe one of the original Giesey designed buildings is still standing between Beaver and Chateau Streets near Western Penitentiary in Pittsburgh. They're impressively ornate yellow/orange brick structures with a single garage bay and peaked tile roofs.

[Twitch]

The lowest price I can personally remember was 14.9¢ in St. Louis in 1964 when I 1st began driving. Two bucks for gas chipped in allowed all evening cruising.

[1937hd45]

This Penny B. Havard original artwork shows a mobil gas cart filling a 1910 era auto on the streets of Bridgeport, Ct.

[Shop Rat]

My father was born Dec. 14, 1916 in Harrisville, W. Va. When he was a young teenager his father built and ran a gas station near their house in the "Sunnyside" section of town. While it was not the first station in the area it did have the first cement ever poured in the town. The pumps had the old glass tank on the top where the gas was pumped up into the tank and then it drained out into the gasoline tank in the car. The pumps are long gone but the house and the building the station was in still stand. Granddad had part or full ownership in several oil and gas wells in the area.

(Side story about the house. Granddad used to make wine in a crock in the attic of the two story plus attic house. A painter had just finished painting the side of the house, where the crock was, white. One of the five kids knocked the crock over and the wine went out the eaves and down the wet paint. No one would own up to having done it so they all got lined up and whipped.)