Anyone know the exact location of the very first gas station in College Station? The Ford Model T started production in 1908 and Chevrolet produced cars in 1911. I'm guessing that by 1915 there were probably enough cars in College Station to warrant a gas station being built.

Back then Texas A&M was oriented towards the COLLEGE depot (probably not far from the current location of Albritton Tower, but on the other side of the tracks). Northgate was the only area for commercial buildings in College Station. My guess is that the very first gas station was probably built somewhere between the College Station depot and Northgate. I would love to see photos of College Station's first gas station.

The first gas station in College Station would probably have looked like one of these:


Cat Spring, Texas


McLean, Texas


Adrian, Texas


Ander, Texas


Unknown location


Biddeford, Maine


Rodney, Mississippi


Unknown location


San Antonio, Texas


Gas pumps in 1915 looked like this:








[This message has been edited by Old Main (edited 12/23/2011 3:11p).]

Texas Avenue.

As you probably know (due to the winky face) Texas Avenue was constructed until the 1930s. The System Administration Building was constructed in the 1930s (WPA project) and the entrance to Texas A&M was reversed from facing the railroad tracks to facing Texas Avenue in the mid 1930s.

I think the first gas station had to be built somewhere between the depot and Northgate.

[This message has been edited by Old Main (edited 12/23/2011 11:23a).]

The stations of College Station. Two different railroads served CS back then. Now they are merged into one.

From BeBopAg,

quote:

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Perhaps not the first but certainly one of the C/S old timers...

NE corner of Wellborn and University (across from the AAA Bldg, now the Bell Bldg) was an old red brick Magnolia Oil Company gas station.

Look like it might have been built in the late 1920's or early 1930's.

Was a hitch-hiker's corner for Ags going West.

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As you mentioned that one probably wasn't the first gas station, but the second or third. The location makes sense and goes with my theory that the earliest gas stations were between the depot and Northgate. Have you seen any photos of the Magnolia service station?

Some Magnolia service stations in Texas:


Shamrock, Texas


Fort Worth, Texas


Giddings, Texas


Van Horn, Texas


Vega, Texas


Castroville, Texas


Amarillo, Texas


Alanreed, Texas


Brownfield, Texas


Star, Texas


Dallas, Texas




[This message has been edited by Old Main (edited 12/23/2011 8:16p).]

Great pictures Old Main! Thanks for sharing those.

There is a very good chance that the first gas station in College Station was just the motorpool at Texas A&M.

...or are you counting Bryan, too?

I'm not really counting Bryan. There was probably a gas station in Bryan several years before there was one in College Station, but Bryan was too far away to depend on for gas for very long. Can you imagine someone in College Station (or the surrounding area) that had to pick someone up at the College Station depot but had to run to Bryan first to gas up?

There is a white wooden building (still standing) in downtown Bryan on Main Street that used to be a gas station. I think this may be the oldest one in Bryan.

At some point before 1920 there had to be a gas station between the depots and Northgate. BeBopAg stated there was one built in the 1930s at University and Wellborn, but that couldn't have been the first one.

There might have been one on the A&M campus in the early days (1915 - 1925). What is this about the motorpool? Where would the gas station have been located on campus? They could have just stored gas in cans on campus, but obviously that would have been a fire hazard and not very practical.



[This message has been edited by Old Main (edited 12/23/2011 8:47p).]

quote:

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There might have been one on the A&M campus in the early days (1915 - 1925). What is this about the motorpool? Where would the gas station have been located on campus? They could have just stored gas in cans on campus, but obviously that would have been a fire hazard and not very practical.

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At one point the motor pool was located in the vicinity of Zachry.

In the early days of gasoline it was stored and sold in cans. There were no filling stations.

What exactly was the motor pool?

quote:

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In the early days of gasoline it was stored and sold in cans. There were no filling stations.

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I did some research on line and it seems that filling stations were found in most places starting around 1915.


[This message has been edited by Old Main (edited 12/24/2011 1:28a).]

motorpool: n. A centrally managed group of motor vehicles intended for the use of personnel, as of a governmental agency or military installation.


Texas A&M was more or less both back then. On top of that, being a leader in Agricultural research, there was equipment to fuel.

The motorpool at Texas A&M now runs the buses and has a fleet of university vehicles that can be rented as needed. That way each department doesn't have to inventory more vehicles than they use on a regular basis. If travel increases by a whole lot one week, they can temporarily add to the departmental fleet at a reasonable price... or if the department doesn't have a fleet, they can simply rent a car .

Back in spring of '05 we took a Crown Victoria from motorpool as a second vehicle (the first was an F450 with a trailer attached). It was very interesting to see how people reacted to a sedan with official symbols on the doors.

quote:

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There is a white wooden building (still standing) in downtown Bryan on Main Street that used to be a gas station. I think this may be the oldest one in Bryan.

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It is on N. Bryan. It is standing for now, but I doubt it will survive more "development" on the north end of down town for too much longer. It is a neat old building and I need to photograph it before it is gone.

Just asked my 94 year old dad who started class in the fall of 35. Only one he remembers was from a few years later and it was across from the USDA building near Welborn and RR tracks on University (can't recall what it was named back then!)

I wish I'd photographed Walding's Texaco on University by McDonald's. The station owner went to Texaco and got dispensation to not use "Texaco Red" but to use maroon.

Memory is serving me poorly, as I cannot remember if it was west of the McD's and knocked down to put in the Coney island (now Taco Bell); or if it was west of the Mobil station, and knocked down when Chipotle went in.

There's an old spanish-tile and stucco Texaco still standing long Texas near downtown Bryan (it's something else now).

There's a quaint old diner/gas station over at FM 1948 & 594 on the other side of the lake. It has a glorious, almost-faded-to-invisible Dr Pepper sign. With some old gas pumps out front (if new enough to be three-digit pumps--from after when gas went over $1/gallon).

In my thirty years' in BCS, I probably saw more stations demolished than built.

quote:

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Just asked my 94 year old dad who started class in the fall of 35. Only one he remembers was from a few years later and it was across from the USDA building near Welborn and RR tracks on University (can't recall what it was named back then!)

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This sounds like the Magnolia Oil Company gas station referenced by BeBopAg in an earlier post.

From BeBopAg,

quote:

---

Perhaps not the first but certainly one of the C/S old timers...

NE corner of Wellborn and University (across from the AAA Bldg, now the Bell Bldg) was an old red brick Magnolia Oil Company gas station.

Look like it might have been built in the late 1920's or early 1930's.

Was a hitch-hiker's corner for Ags going West.

---

[This message has been edited by Old Main (edited 12/26/2011 4:24p).]

quote:

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Memory is serving me poorly, as I cannot remember if it was west of the McD's and knocked down to put in the Coney island (now Taco Bell); or if it was west of the Mobil station, and knocked down when Chipotle went in.

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Chipotle was the Mobile station. I know, I worked there for a couple of years while going to school.

Below are some pics of the old wooden gas station on N. Bryan in downtown Bryan near Main Street. To me this building looks like it could have been built between 1915 and 1920 which would be the correct time period for the oldest gas station in Bryan. Does anyone know what brand gas station this was?







Below are two pics of an old gas station at 3410 S. Texas Avenue (about halfway between downtown Bryan and A&M). To me the art deco elements of this building indicate that it could have been built in the 1930s, but I might be way off. The bare metal poles are throwing me off a little as far as the time period. Since Texas Avenue was completed in the 1930s this might be one of the first if not the very first gas station on Texas Avenue.





Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s College Avenue connected downtown Bryan with A&M. The only other connection was of course the railroad (The Houston and Texas Central Railway was built in 1860 and the first College Station depot was constructed in 1883). College Avenue was probably unpaved and used by horse drawn carriages before the automobile appeared in 1908-1912. The old Interurban Streetcar ran between A&M and Bryan mostly down College Avenue (and also Cavitt and Old College) starting in 1910. From 1910 to 1915 the Interurban ran on gasoline. In 1915 it switched to electricity and the line ceased operations in 1923 due to the popularity of buses and automobiles. There is a good chance the oldest gas station between Bryan and A&M was on College Avenue. I have seen several old buildings along College Avenue that might have been gas stations predating 1920, but I haven't had a chance to take any photos of them yet.















[This message has been edited by Old Main (edited 12/27/2011 10:42a).]

An old-timer told me that the old white wooden building in downtown Bryan (pictured below) used to be a Sinclair Gas Station. Their logo was famous...it had a green dinosaur on it. A lot of the Sinclair stations had a dinosaur model outside for photos.

Found this photo of a Bryan Texaco on Flickr. Obviously not an incredibly old photo (plastic trashcan) but cool nonetheless.

Nice pic.

An acquaintance mentioned there was one between Nagle and state 308 (aka College Ave). Stated there was a circle type drive area, hence Circle Drive-In, similar to the circle drive in Waco. Hwy 60 ended not much further past that area. He didn't remember the type of fuel because they filled up their tank in Bryan.

Meant to post these a while back and forgot...sorry for the crappy pics, but they're cellphone snaps.

Anyways, this is the old station at S. Sims and W 26th in Bryan (it was recently used as a boxing gym):



This one is an old station on E. 23rd, since I've lived in the area I've never seen it actually used for anything:

You may consider searching the pictorial archives of the Cushing Library. The folks that work there might even know the answer.

Swooper,

That first one you posted is the same station as the one in the B&W I posted. Looks like it's really gone downhill.

I always liked the petrified wood service station in Decatur:

quote:

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That first one you posted is the same station as the one in the B&W I posted. Looks like it's really gone downhill.

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Yeah it is, didn't notice that at first. With this location's proximity to south end of downtown, it would be a prime location to have a really cool coffee shop or cigar bar...it would take the right kind of individual to renovate that property in just the right way to retain some of the patina and vibe. It would also take a lot of money...

Check with Anne Boykin (ABoykin@cstx.gov)who is working on CS history. There had to have been a filling station on or close to campus in early days because so many faculty and staff lived on campus before WWII.
It is interesting that Bryan merchants would take telephone orders and deliver to campus residences before there were grocery stores and butcher shops near campus. When the Safeway opened in Townshire, it was the nearest supermarket for CS residents. Older friends were shopping there one day shortly after it opened and were
SO resentful that they had to go to Bryan! They felt that they had been exploited over the years by Bryan bankers and merchants.

Anne is a friend of mine and posts here from time to time, as LWInk.

Thanks for the plug! I no longer archive history for the city of CS but I still have a deep interest in Brazos Valley history.

I recall a photo of an old gas station in Wellborn. I think the photo was in the Project HOLD archives at HOLD.cstx.gov.

You probably need to ask Fossil_Ag but I doubt he posts here anymore. Also check in Lyman Hardeman's recent book on the first 25 years of A&M. Also, the Sanders Corps of Cadets Center has all of the old A&M yearbooks. The ads might have a name or address of a station. Also, on the Project HOLD site are some early aerial views that might help. We also had some early phone books that are just a few pages that could be easily checked for stations.

You can email me if you need more information.
lwink2 at aol.

There was a Conoco station at the corner of 29th and Texas that was a great example of art deco. I'm not sure how old it was, it was torn down about eight years ago.

According to a Roadside Architecture site this was a Sinclair station:



It is now Andy's Auto Repair at Texas Ave. and Houston.