Here ya go, George. My mother may have been in that gas station. She and her friends used to get a ride to Altoona to dance to the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra IIRC.
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re: oldest gas station
Thatās a very interesting link, thanks @jtsanders for posting. In operation since 1909! Wow! I was thinking that Pennsylvania would be a likely candidate for the USās oldest gas station, given Pennās historical link, one of the first crude oil extraction sites in the USA. If I ever find myself in the Altoona, PA area Iāll definitely make a special trip to see the gas station. Appears to be located roughly equidistant between Pittsburg and Philly.
Another thing Iād enjoy to see, apparently there are a few places in PA where the ground has been on fire for years and years, coal seam fires hard to put out.
For some reason Iām reminded of some sort of incident involving Harry Truman by the word āAltoonaā. Not sure why.
There was coal in Cambria County, west of Altoona. My grandfather was a blacksmith in a mine there in the early 1900s when he arrived in the US. I donāt know if there are fires there. There is still an underground fire in a coal mine near Centralia, about half way between Harrisburg and Scranton.
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From where did ENCO originate?
Related to ESSO?
Dunno ENCO.
ESSO was one of the spinoffs when Standard Oil was broken up.
Per wiki:
Enco was a secondary retail brand name for products of the Humble Oil Corporation (which had been acquired by Standard Oil of New Jersey in 1959) in certain parts of the United States from 1960 to 1977. It was used on service stations operated by Humble in states where they were not permitted to use the Esso brand under conditions set by the court-ordered breakup of Standard Oil in 1911.
After Humble Oil and Standard Oil of NJ rebranded as Exxon in 1973, the brand was eventually discontinued in 1977.
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Gulf, Shell, Mobil, Cities Service, DX, Sinclair, Sunoco, Coreyās, Clark, Marathon, Husky, Cenex, Phillips, --There are more plus some area specific independents and convenience stores with pumps.
American, BP, Standard
In the early 80s I had a 43000 lb load of aluminum ingots for a transmission plant in Pottstown PA. I decided to take a āshortcutā from Danville pa using routes 54 and 61. BIG NISTAKE! With a puny 290 horse fuel squeezer Cummins and a heavy load it took forever to get up the hills through Bear Gap and Eagle Pass and then I came to Centraila. There were emergency road crews everywhere. They were keeping traffic stopped to let traffic through only one lane because of road cave ins from the underground fires. The town was being evacuated. The smoke was stinging my eyes and I was glad when I finally got through.
I stopped to eat in Frackville and I was so exhausted that I was in the restaurant for well over an hour slugging down coffee. When I came out, smoke was still coming off my brakes.
I never went that way again. Still, Iām glad I saw it once.
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