Old gas stations

[2jakes]

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ Awesome dinosaur on the Sinclair roof. Talk about having the perfect mascot and having the perfect execution of that mascot - for that reason alone, shame Sinclair isn't still around.

And always fun to see the gas station attendant - working around cars, oil, grease, gasoline, etc. - in his perfectly unmarked white uniform.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Rob

 

[2jakes]

And always fun to see the gas station attendant - working around cars, oil, grease, gasoline, etc. - in his perfectly unmarked white uniform.

The uniform was probably "for promotional purposes only”

"On the job” photo.

Looks like he was caught by surprise!

 

[Fading Fast]

I understand and agree - it's just funny that they chose white of all colors even for promotion. I pumped gas back when you also checked the oil and tire pressure (fan belt, break fluid, etc.) as well as cleaned the windows. It was a messy job. Dark green or navy made much more sense as a uniform color. But as Lizzie would say, "The Boys from Marketing." And, heck, somehow, Hess did pull off the white uniform reasonable well.

 

[2jakes]

It was more than just “BFM”.

I recall the "medicine pill brown" glass bottles along with the “regular” milk.
And it wasn’t chocolate milk!

 

[Fading Fast]

I understand the white / clean thing related to food back then especially when the country was still getting comfortable getting its food from companies at a distance - was it safe? clean? sanitary? My grandparents and even parents had a concern about food cleanliness in a way that my generation and today's do not. Yes, today there's concern with health or sustainability or "local" issues; but that's different, our parents and grandparents were very concerned that the food was handled with good, basic sanitary practices.

But who cares if your gas staton attendant is in a white uniform - must have tested well by "TBFM" and they "sold" the idea to the oil companies.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Reconstructions or exhibits of some kind? The Sinclair is an interesting mix of signage -- most of it is late-fifties/early sixties, but the sign on the front of the canopy with the "perspective" lettering is 1930s. Not impossible "in the wild," but it seems unlikely that a station so otherwise up-to-date would be exhibiting such an out of date sign.

There's also a couple of tipoffs with the Texaco, the most notable being the fact that the attendant is wearing the hexagonal "Mattawan" Texaco logo not rolled out nationally until around 1967 -- the 1967 Texaco dealer calendar was the first to feature it -- and the majority of dealers were still wearing the old round insignia well into the early 1970s. But the oil cans stacked in the window, with the Havoline bulls-eye and the Texaco checkerboard, both feature label designs that were eliminated in 1962.

 

[2jakes]

Reconstructions or exhibits of some kind?

I don't have more info to your question regarding my post
of the Sinclair and Texaco stations, whether they are recon
or exhibits by folks who enjoy vintage gas stations.

Perhaps the guys following this thread can enlighten you with more
details.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Rob

 

[2jakes]

Rob, at first glance & the spelling of “GASOLENE”, I thought it was odd
or unusual until I saw the ad from 1934.

 

[2jakes]

@ Fading Fast.
Click image to get bigger view of the name of the ice cream in the middle of the photo.

 

[Fading Fast]

Lizzie, in 2Jakes's Sinclair picture, do you have any idea what exactly the dinosaur (you see its head and neck) next to the gas pump is? I know its promotional / branding, but was that normal? Is it some sort of figure they usually put next to the pumps?

2Jakes - great find on the "Sanitary" Ice-Cream."

 

[Fading Fast]

Rob

Any one familiar with "Ward's Soft Bun Bread" and its admonition to "eat three slices three times a day?"

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Mmmmm..."sanitary ice cream"....

As opposed to what?

Rob

 

[LizzieMaine]

Lizzie, in 2Jakes's Sinclair picture, do you have any idea what exactly the dinosaur (you see its head and neck) next to the gas pump is? I know its promotional / branding, but was that normal? Is it some sort of figure they usually put next to the pumps?

2Jakes - great find on the "Sanitary" Ice-Cream."

Sinclair went in big for the dinosaur figures in the postwar era -- in addition to the giant rooftop models, there were smaller ones that were just the right size for kids to climb around on. The pump island was not the usual place to display such a figure -- usually they'd be on the cement walkway surrounding the building.
Here's a random photo snagged from ebay --

Although it looks like it ought to be fiberglas, these were actually made from cast aluminum to deter vandalism. Note the seams at the head and the tail, which made these parts easily replaceable if broken.

As for "Gasolene," Cities Service for some reason insisted on that spelling well into the 1930s, in the same contrarian way that the proprietors of Iodent toothpaste promised their product would "bryten" teeth. Such idiosyncratic spellings were a bit of psychological manipulation by the Boys -- they knew that a familiar word spelled in an odd way would grab the attention of the reader and prevent the ad from disappearing into its surroundings.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Any one familiar with "Ward's Soft Bun Bread" and its admonition to "eat three slices three times a day?"

Ward's bread was an institution in New York city in the Era -- the Ward Baking Company was based in Brooklyn, and its products were probably the best-selling bread in the city from the 1890s to the 1940s. "Tip Top" was its flagship brand, but "Bun Soft" was a secondary line developed to compete with balloon-bread products like Wonder. Ward buns were also very well known, and were the standard hot dog roll served in all three of the city's major league ballparks. Ward Baking even sponsored a team in the short-lived Federal League, the "Brooklyn Tip-Tops."

 

[Fading Fast]

Sinclair went in big for the dinosaur figures in the postwar era -- in addition to the giant rooftop models, there were smaller ones that were just the right size for kids to climb around on. The pump island was not the usual place to display such a figure -- usually they'd be on the cement walkway surrounding the building.
Here's a random photo snagged from ebay --

Although it looks like it ought to be fiberglas, these were actually made from cast aluminum to deter vandalism. Note the seams at the head and the tail, which made these parts easily replaceable if broken.

As for "Gasolene," Cities Service for some reason insisted on that spelling well into the 1930s, in the same contrarian way that the proprietors of Iodent toothpaste promised their product would "bryten" teeth. Such idiosyncratic spellings were a bit of psychological manipulation by the Boys -- they knew that a familiar word spelled in an odd way would grab the attention of the reader and prevent the ad from disappearing into its surroundings.

Credit where due, TBFM killed it with the dinosaur branding - it's like they crawled inside my head and came up with a campaign that would've had me going to their stations even if the gas was a bit more expensive. Yep, I'm that easily manipulated. That said, tell me that's ⇧ not one good looking dinosaur.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And here's a peek at the very beginning of the Sinclair dinosaur campaign.

This flyer, tricked up to look like a typical city tabloid newspaper, was handed out by Sinclair dealers in the summer of 1933 to promote the company's exhibit at the Century Of Progress Exhibition in Chicago. For a great many Americans, the Sinclair campaign was their introduction to the whole idea of dinosaurs. The company repeated the campaign at the New York fair in 1939-40, and capped with its gigantic "Dinoland" exhibit at the New York fair of 1964-65, an event that permanently seared the idea of Sinclair Dinosaurs on the minds of a whole generation of postwar children.

 

[Fading Fast]

Ward's bread was an institution in New York city in the Era -- the Ward Baking Company was based in Brooklyn, and its products were probably the best-selling bread in the city from the 1890s to the 1940s. "Tip Top" was its flagship brand, but "Bun Soft" was a secondary line developed to compete with balloon-bread products like Wonder. Ward buns were also very well known, and were the standard hot dog roll served in all three of the city's major league ballparks. Ward Baking even sponsored a team in the short-lived Federal League, the "Brooklyn Tip-Tops."

Thank you Lizziepedia. Did some Googling on Ward and discovered that its parent company - Continental Baking - also introduced Twinkies in '33.