Old gas stations

[Fading Fast]

I wonder what the ground conditions are under some of these old stations that were abandoned or transformed into not-gas-station businesses decades ago before more thoughtful environmental rules were put in place? I believe I've read that today it is quite expensive to comply with all the work necessary to transition a gas station site into another business, but I doubt there's a process in place to identify ones that transitioned decades ago.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Only when the tanks finally rust through, and the ground collapses, lol.

Rob

 

[BobHufford]

I believe I've read that today it is quite expensive to comply with all the work necessary to transition a gas station site into another business, but I doubt there's a process in place to identify ones that transitioned decades ago.

Around here it is a very expensive process that has to be done if you sell the property. My brother-in-law recently paid around $8K to have the ground checked for tanks and residuals on the grounds of an old gas station that he inherited and recently sold (the tanks were removed years ago). Hate to think what the cost would be to "properly" remove the tanks today.

All the more reason for us to keep the station we have (and the rental income is helpful). The tanks are gone on ours as well.

 

[2jakes]

Humbly awaiting restoration.

 

[2jakes]

Heaven!

 

[Bushman]

Man, just don't make'em like they used to!

 

[2jakes]

Makes me appreciate that much the ones in my neck of the woods that are still around
and doing business.
I can spend the whole day there on my time off. (gas station, hardware & barber shop)
High ceilings, wood floors and friendly folks.
One shop has a Coca~Cola vending machine with the 6 oz. glass bottles that they sell
for 5¢.

Man, just don't make'em like they used to!

 

[LizzieMaine]

There's a good reason for all that remediation on old gas station sites -- those old steel tanks only had a lifespan of about thirty years, and it was all too common when a station was abandoned to just leave them there to rot. The result was contaminated groundwater -- which, if you live in an area that has a lot of wells, can be catastrophic. The town over from where I grew up used to have a roadside spring with a pump that drew people from miles around for the quality of its water. They had to shut it down in the '80s because the water was contaminated with benzine -- which, upon investigation, came from the tanks of an abandoned Amoco station upstream from the pump. They were able to trace it to that specific station because Amoco had for years used benzine additives in its gasoline as a substitute for tetraethyl lead.

There's another case in my hometown under investigation right now. Several cases of contaminated wells have been reported near the site of what was once a Chevron station. That station was torn down in the early 1970s -- but it's suspected that the tanks were just left in place and paved over. There's a bank on that plot of land now, which might end up having to be torn down itself if the tanks have to be extracted and the contaminated soil removed. Ooops.

I think the rule here now is that the tanks have to be removed within 60 days after a station closes, but that doesn't do much good for stations that closed decades ago. Even in such cases, they don't always get all the tanks -- the building that was once my family's station finally gave up selling gas about ten years ago, and they got the fuel tanks out of the ground. But they didn't realize there was a third tank there, where we used to dump our waste oil. That one was finally discovered and dug up a couple years back, at substantial additional expense -- and given that it was over seventy years old, you can imagine the condition it was in.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

This one is in Ocala, Florida...

Rob

 

[LizzieMaine]

Boy, Sinclair sure loved that design. Pity they had to fill in the canopy like that, but the shape is still clearly recognizable.

 

[2jakes]

"Capacity Day in Ocala, Florida

The Ocala [Florida] Star-Banner stated that, "On Capacity Day,
individual dealers will vie with each other in big gasoline sales contest.
The one reporting the biggest one-day gallonage increase being named
the Capacity Day winner.
A special award plaque and prize will be awarded to the winning
Sinclair dealer."

Ah..the good old days!

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Hess, perhaps?

Rob

 

[LizzieMaine]

Looks like a postwar Sinclair. Not too many companies have used green and white -- Texaco and Cities Service both used three green stripes, Hess used one broad stripe thru the middle of the lettering, and Sinclair had two parallel stripes with lettering in the middle.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ When did Sinclair stop using (or de-emphasize) it's dinosaur mascot. I thought that was an awesome one.

 

[LizzieMaine]

They started using dinosaurs in advertising in the 1930s, to illustrate the ancient age of the fine crudes used to make their products,and used a circular red and black trademark featuring a black brontosaurus on their oil cans during this same period. They ran a lot of magazine ads feauring themes like "THIS TYRANNOSAURUS REX LIVED X HUNDRED MILLION YEARS AGO -- That's how old the crudes are in Sinclair Opaline Motor Oil!" These were the first enduring uses of dinosaurs as a motif in advertising, and for a long time, a lot of what "everybody knew" about dinosaurs came from these ads.

But the main station sign during this period was a circular logo with no dinosaur - instead they had the letters "H C," for "High Compression." The green and white trapezoid with the green brontosaurus at the bottom showed up in the late 1950s, and remains in use to the present day.

Sinclair ceased to exist as a company during the 1970s when they were bought out by Atlantic-Richfield, but the name and trademarks were sold off and a new company established to use them. It has no connection to the original Sinclair, but has a strong presence in that company's former marketing territory, and they brought the dinosaur back by popular demand not long after the new company got going.

Sinclair's exhibits at both New York Worlds Fairs -- 1939-40 and 1964-65 -- both featured educational displays about dinosaurs, which made huge impressions on the generations of kids who toured those exhibits, and helped make American kids of the mid-20th century very dinosaur conscious. It was one of the Boys' most popular merchandising tie-ins -- and no royalties to pay!

 

[Fading Fast]

...Sinclair's exhibits at both New York Worlds Fairs -- 1939-40 and 1964-65 -- both featured educational displays about dinosaurs, which made huge impressions on the generations of kids who toured those exhibits, and helped make American kids of the mid-20th century very dinosaur conscious. It was one of the Boys' most popular merchandising tie-ins -- and no royalties to pay!

That's all good and well (see bolded in your above) until we discover some still living dinosaurs on a remote island or somewhere - then the long-delayed and much-deserved day of reckoning for The Boys will have arrived. I certainly don't want to be on the wrong side of the table when a brontosaurus wants to know where all his royalty money is.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Especially when he hires one of those velociraptor lawyers. You know how they can be.

 

[2jakes]

The first "Brontosaurus" made it's debut in Chicago @ 1933-1934
"Century of Progress" World's Fair.

A 1960s version visited 38 cities in 25 states.


And in other news...
A 1930s service station owner made a sign to explain to his customers
why his price of gasoline was at 20 1/2 cents a gallon.

And as much as I hate math...
the figures don't add up right!

Price of fishing worms undisclosed.
Unless that 1/2 cents extra was for the worms.

 

[BobHufford]

A 1930s service station owner made a sign to explain to his customers
why his price of gasoline was at 20 1/2 cents a gallon.

And as much as I hate math...
the figures don't add up right!

Price of fishing worms undisclosed.
Unless that 1/2 cents extra was for the worms.

Adds up for me.

Sinclair was my favorite gasoline brand as a kid (loved that Dino), but Mom always bought Standard.

 

[2jakes]

Adds up for me.

I did mentioned that math was not
a favorite subject in school!

And my eyesight is not what it used to be.
I thought the R.R. was taking
2 1/4 cents instead of 2 3/4 cents.