Old gas stations

[Fading Fast]

Jenney had cards, but they were a big regional covering all of New England. I think they had at least a few hundred stations at their peak, so that would make sense.

When we had our station, we ran local "credit accounts" for regular customers aside from accepting the regular Texaco card, but we didn't issue any special card for these. Basically if my grandfather knew you and trusted you, you could run a gas tab, which would be written down on a slip and stored in a drawer under the cash register. When I cleaned out this drawer after we closed, I found unpaid tabs dating back to the 1940s.

When my dad closed down their small appliance / jewelry store in the early '60s, they, too, had plenty of uncollected accounts. It seems to have been a "cost of doing business" in that era as having a "house account" was probably a good way to build customer loyalty and keep the business coming your way. Of course, managing the process and making sure the uncollected ones didn't get out of hand was probably challenging.

 

[LizzieMaine]

My grandmother did the bookkeeping until she got too sick to keep up with it, and then I took it over when I was a junior in high school, and it was a real pain to keep everything current -- there were no computers, obviously, so we kept the books with a loose-leaf ledger and a mechanical adding machine, and that meant it was very easy for charges to get lost. Texaco provided a very good daily record-keeping system but that depended on being very conscientious about making sure the paperwork went from the station to the office on a timely basis. Unfortunately both my grandfather and my uncle had the habit of jotting charges on the back of old envelopes, calendar pages, and anything else that came to hand, so you never quite knew if you had everything that needed to be recorded. It was very much a handshake/word-of-mouth/"give me a couple of deer steaks or a peck of clams and we'll call it even" kind of situation.

 

[Stearmen]

I do remember those -- they were an "Ortho" product, which was Chevron's chemical subsidiary. "Weed B Gon" was the brand name, I think.

Thanks Lizzie, I knew I could count on you! I was pretty sure it was Chevron where we bought them. They worked great, but were probably so toxic I don't even want to know!

 

[Fading Fast]

My grandmother did the bookkeeping until she got too sick to keep up with it, and then I took it over when I was a junior in high school, and it was a real pain to keep everything current -- there were no computers, obviously, so we kept the books with a loose-leaf ledger and a mechanical adding machine, and that meant it was very easy for charges to get lost. Texaco provided a very good daily record-keeping system but that depended on being very conscientious about making sure the paperwork went from the station to the office on a timely basis. Unfortunately both my grandfather and my uncle had the habit of jotting charges on the back of old envelopes, calendar pages, and anything else that came to hand, so you never quite knew if you had everything that needed to be recorded. It was very much a handshake/word-of-mouth/"give me a couple of deer steaks or a peck of clams and we'll call it even" kind of situation.

View attachment 65983

Fantastic picture.

As to bookkeeping. My father, a small businessman, professional gambler and (pretty certain) low-key bookie kept meticulous books. He knew exactly who owed him what, but he also knew who couldn't pay.

He saw the entire exercise of credit as a business decision, in the most part, and, charity, here and there. He said there was credit he issued that he knew when he was issuing it was as good as giving the money away, but "it was for an old friend hard up," "a family down on their luck," "somebody who was sick," etc. That was the charity.

He also knew that there was credit that was "money in the bank," "he'll always pay," "don't have to worry about him." He said he was right in the high 90% and that most of what he "wrote" off, he knew he would being writing off the day he gave the credit.

He could do that because he lived in the same small community his entire life and was a businessman (etc.) in that community since his mid teens. People knew most everyone, knew their story, their situation and there was a social norm of how you behaved. I have a friend who lives back near where I grew up and he says that entire social / cultural norm is gone even though the town is still there.

 

[BobHufford]

Another local that still survives (as a barber shop).

 

[BlueTrain]

Different companies have different ideas about credit. That is, about giving credit. Some simply never did, others were far more willing. And like was just said, credit write-offs were considered a cost of doing business. These days, the wide-spread use of bank credit cards (and American Express) means that in-house credit accounts are unusual. There is no credit risk for the merchant but believe me, there is a cost if offering credit cards as a means of payment. So it works out to be just about the same. Either way, the use of credit cards has also replaced open accounts payable for businesses, too.

I'm from a region that used to have a lot of company stores, all owned by coal companies. I was in a few of them with my father but I have no idea what they were like from a customer's point of view. There's just about all gone now and I doubt if anyone misses them. I also recall going in country general stores that offered credit to local residents. They would have a big rack (or whatever you might call it) in which unpaid tickets were kept somewhere behind the counter. I imagine they're gone, too.

I grew up in a small town of about 8,000 people--thought it was larger--but I doubt there was anyone who knew everyone. The town is still there today but the chief employer left about 40 years ago and it hasn't been the same since. But it wasn't the same town when I was living there that it was when my grandparents moved there from the country, either. I can't really says if it was better or worse, only that it wasn't the same. I never heard anyone say how they missed the dance band at the big hotel or how they wished the passenger trains or the streetcar was still running. All I heard were complaints about the traffic and the lack of parking.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Fantastic picture.

As to bookkeeping. My father, a small businessman, professional gambler and (pretty certain) low-key bookie kept meticulous books. He knew exactly who owed him what, but he also knew who couldn't pay.

He saw the entire exercise of credit as a business decision, in the most part, and, charity, here and there. He said there was credit he issued that he knew when he was issuing it was as good as giving the money away, but "it was for an old friend hard up," "a family down on their luck," "somebody who was sick," etc. That was the charity.

He also knew that there was credit that was "money in the bank," "he'll always pay," "don't have to worry about him." He said he was right in the high 90% and that most of what he "wrote" off, he knew he would being writing off the day he gave the credit.

He could do that because he lived in the same small community his entire life and was a businessman (etc.) in that community since his mid teens. People knew most everyone, knew their story, their situation and there was a social norm of how you behaved. I have a friend who lives back near where I grew up and he says that entire social / cultural norm is gone even though the town is still there.

That's one of only two photos we have of the place, which is pretty sad since we ran it for forty years. It was taken by my mother with a box Brownie. The red star hanging over the grease bay is now hanging in my stairwell at home.

I think you may have hit upon the main reason we always had financial problems with the place -- my grandfather was a lousy, lousy gambler and was terrible at calculating odds. When I was cleaning out their house after my grandparents died, I found hundreds of horse-racing betting tickets, all presumably losers. He tended to choose his bets on the basis of whether he liked the horse's name rather than any dispassionate calculation of the horse's record, and he always lost his shirt. My uncle wasn't much better -- he was a mark for every slick-talking con man and promoter that ever blew thru town, and spent most of his life caught up in transparent get-rich-quick schemes, to the detriment of the station.

The building still stands, though. It was running as a convenience store up until about ten years ago, sat vacant for a while, and was recently bought by a custom-cabinetmaking company.

The concrete rim at the base of the building was last painted -- by me -- in 1979. Since they dug up the pump island, it's all that remains of the original configuration of the building.

 

[BobHufford]

1938, Springfield, MO. The station shown here utilizes one of the (now obsolete) street cars after that service ended in 1937.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Here's an oldie in my home town...

A vintage garbage can, used as a concrete form for the station sign....lol.

Rob

 

[BobHufford]

When I mentioned that Mom always went to Standard for gas I was referring to this station. This was about 30 years prior to my memories (I don't recall the rounded corner and the station was replaced with a new one in 1968 -- when I was 8). It is now the location of a CVS Pharmacy.

 

[dh66]

1938, Springfield, MO. The station shown here utilizes one of the (now obsolete) street cars after that service ended in 1937.

Very cool Bob!!

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[BlueTrain]

There was only one gas station in my hometown worthy of a photo and it's been gone for years. I was across the street from the back of the court house, which was inside a traffic circle. I'm pretty sure it was a Gulf station and as best as I can recall, it was white with a very steep blue roof. It was really small, too, probably the smallest one in town, out of no more than a half-dozen, one of which was owned by an uncle. I think it must have been a standard corporate design because I've seen one or two other identical buildings that used to be gas stations somewhere along U.S. 460 in Virginia, somewhere near Wakefield. But by today's standards, it would be entirely too small. It didn't have a garage, either, with has been common for a long time, even though many stations now do not have garages, just the gas pumps and a big convenience store.

There were scarcely a dozen buildings in town worth seeing but that was one of them. Another was an Italianate-style residence that still looks really nice but I never knew who lived there. Hard to imagine that houses like that would be built in a little town like that but one sees it everywhere in small towns.

 

[BobHufford]

Very cool Bob!!

Thanks Dale. The site is now occupied by a liquor store and a gym. I never make it past the liquor store.

 

[dh66]

Thanks Dale. The site is now occupied by a liquor store and a gym. I never make it past the liquor store.

I can relate to that

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[LizzieMaine]

Socony/Mobil was very big on that "drum-style" concept in the 1940s, and a lot of them survive in various guises. A Mobildrum will be recognized by the round porthole windows flanking the round corner section.

 

[BlueTrain]

It works as a 7-11 but somehow the law office comes off as looking like a shuttered business. In fact, it works really well as a 7-11, in my opinion.

 

[Fading Fast]

It works as a 7-11 but somehow the law office comes off as looking like a shuttered business. In fact, it works really well as a 7-11, in my opinion.

Also, I don't need walnut panelling, oriental rugs and leather club chairs, but the legal world and courtrooms are tough battlefields - even if the armaments are words and precedents not bullets and bombs - hence, walking into a former gas station is not necessarily confidence-inspiring when one is picking an attorney. However, as a place to get a big gulp and a cookie - it looks perfect.

 

[LizzieMaine]

At least in a gas station, all labor is guaranteed.

 

[BlueTrain]

The more I think about that gas station, I'm pretty sure it was a Pure Oil station. I found a few photos (posting photos is beyond me) that look like what I remember. Whatever it was, I think the styling was called Colonial. It was a tiny building by any standards, and except for the pumps out front, it didn't look like what you thought of as a gas station.

 

[BobHufford]

As long as I can remember this old station was a portion of a larger building that was a transmission shop. In the last few years it had closed down and then some demolition was done to expose the original station. Then it was slowly transformed into a curiosity that we now know will most likely be a restaurant.

http://www.news-leader.com/story/ne...r-man-tell-me-new-building-c-street/95712894/