When Gas was 15c a gallon – US Filling Stations 1937-1942

The first proper drive-in service station opened in Pennsylvania in 1913 - “Unlike earlier simple curbside gasoline filling stations, an architect purposefully designed the pagoda-style brick facility [that] offered free air, water, crankcase service and tire and tube installation."

When Gas was 15c a gallon - US Filling Stations 1937-1942

Louisville, Kentucky. Virginia Lively used to be a beauty operator. Today she works at a gas station. Howard R Hollem 1943. Buy prints.

Before the ubiquitous gas stations people bought gasoline literally out of a barrel at a grocery or hardware store. Some of which even offered gasoline home delivery in five-gallon jugs. The world’s first purpose-built gas station was built in St. Louis, Missouri in 1905 at 420 South Theresa Avenue. Although the Smithsonian magazine says that the first proper drive-in service station opened in Pennsylvania in 1913 – “Unlike earlier simple curbside gasoline filling stations, an architect purposefully designed the pagoda-style brick facility [that] offered free air, water, crankcase service and tire and tube installation.”

The motoring world changed quickly and by the mid 1930s there were around 200,000 filling stations in the US selling an incredible 15 billion gallons of gas. The gas stations were the first commercial buildings to be set back from the street allowing cars to come off the road and not disrupt the traffic. The American oil industry by then employed over a million people.

 

When Gas was 15c a gallon - US Filling Stations 1937-1942

Gas station and gospel mission, Cleveland, Ohio – John Vachon, 1937. Buy prints.

A Greyhound bus that has been stopped while the driver fills the water tank at a gas station on the road between Gettysburg and Pennsylvania, Ester Bubley, 1943

When Gas was 15c a gallon - US Filling Stations 1937-1942

Cooperative gas station in Minneapolis, Marion Post Wolcott, 1941. Buy prints.

Edcouch, Texas, gas station, Texas, 1939 -Russell Lee

Washington DC, 1939 – David Myers

Gas station, Benton Harbor, Michigan 1940 – John Vachon. Buy prints.

Kern County California – Dorothea Lange, November 1938

Arthur Rothstein, Gas Station Butte Montana 1939. Buy prints.

Paul Bunyan atop gas station, Bemidji, Minnesota – John Vachon 1939

General store and gas station, Venus, Florida – Marion Post Wolcott, 1939. Buy prints.

When Gas was 15c a gallon - US Filling Stations 1937-1942

Gas station attendant at service station filling tank of a motorists Dodge car, Washington DC – Albert Freeman, 1942

Gas station along Highway US 50, Winchester Virginia – Arthur Rothstein, 1940

When Gas was 15c a gallon - US Filling Stations 1937-1942

Melrose Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana crossroads store bar, ‘Jook Joint’ and gas station in cotton plantation area – Marion Post Wolcott, 1940

Gas station and dance hall Osage, West Virginia – Marion Post Wolcott, 1938

Gas station in front of old colonial house, Jackson, Mississippi Delta – Marion Post Wolcott, 1939

Melrose Natchitoches Parish Louisiana Crossroads – Marion Post Wolcott 1940

Gas station, Frederick, Maryland John Vachon 1937

These extraordinary photographs are from the Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information Photograph Collection (Library of Congress)

Buy prints.

 

Would you like to support Flashbak?

Please consider making a donation to our site. We don't want to rely on ads to bring you the best of visual culture. You can also support us by signing up to our Mailing List. And you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. For great art and culture delivered to your door, visit our shop.