Route 66 Rock Gas Station
by Lynn Sprowl
Title
Route 66 Rock Gas Station
Artist
Lynn Sprowl
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
Rock Gas Station east of Arcadia Oklahoma on Route 66, was a Conoco Station in the 1920's.
"This is one of the last old gasoline filling stations still standing in this part of the country. No one knows for sure, but it is thought to have been built in the late teens or early twenties. It had two pumps, one for regular gas and one for ethyl, which was a little higher octane. Oil was dispensed from, a 50-gallon drum, which was laid down on its side on a wooden frame. A spigot was put in the end of the drum, under which you put a quart can, then taken to your car and put in the motor.
Seeing there was no electricity out here at that time, most homes and buildings were lighted by kerosene lamps or lanterns. Kerosene was dispensed the same way oil was, from a metal drum, put in your container and taken home.
Cold soda pop was sold only on days when the ice man made �t by. The pop was put in a large metal box with chipped ice over it. Hard candy was sold most of the time; chocolate was sold only in the winter, because �n the summer it would melt � since there were no refrigerators.
Back then, times were very hard and it was difficult to make a living. One day, about the time Al Capone was terrorizing the City of Chicago, a so-called salesman came by the station, offering to sell the owners a way to make a lot of money, literally, for he had a set of plates for a counterfeit ten-dollar bill. The story goes that the people yielded to temptation, with the thought of being able to get rich quick. .
A small room was constructed on the back of the old station for the purpose of hiding the printing materials and a place to work. The only entrance was through the window you see on the back wall of the station. The window had a solid wooden door, which was kept closed most of the time. People didn�t even know that there was a room back there.
Uploaded
July 10th, 2014
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