The best historic filling or service stations to find are the ones that are still standing. And I count each one that I spy in my travels with glee (and you can read about them on this blog – I’ll put links at the bottom of this post). But sometimes all that remains is a black and white photograph. (And it’s pure luck that photograph exists.)
This 1928 image is part of the Caufield & Shook Collection at University of Louisville Photographic Archives. The entry notes that the corner service station has a “small car lift in the lot…and a gas pump with lights mounted at the top.” Image number ULPA CS 088014.
The diminutive stucco clad building was located at the corner of Main Street and Seminary Street, tucked onto a square of pavement next to a frame house with multiple dormers, and across the street from a brick church with a large portico.
Former filling station, Pineville, Kentucky.
Tiles (probably red) clad a pent roof on the facade – the building has some similar characteristics to the historic filling station (see above photo) in Pineville, Kentucky.
The discovery of oil in the Spindletop Field of Texas led to the founding of Gulf Oil in 1901, and throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the company built filling stations like the one in Princeton across the Southeast, Midwest, and Northeast. As some Kentuckians might know, a second gusher of oil at that location in 1925 made Miles Frank Yount and his wife Mildred (most commonly known as Pansy) very, very rich. Pansy Yount would go on to found Spindletop Farm in Fayette County, Kentucky.
The historic First Baptist Church in Princeton. Image from Google Streetview.
The church seen in the background of the 1920 photograph IS still standing! Built around 1927, the congregation was organized in 1850. This is the third building on the site, as the circa 1881 church burned, and the 1896 church building was presumably torn down to make room for the current building.
The corner of West Main Street and Seminary Street, where the filling station once stood. Image from Google Streetview.
But no historic service station remains.* Only an innocuous grassy lot, framed by a metal fence, defines what was once an important and busy corner in Princeton.
*As always, I would love to hear from anyone that might remember this filling station or knows of any other historic service stations I should check out.
*You can read more about my penchant for historic gas stations at these links:
UPDATE! Good News for the Old Gas Station on US 68, Mercer County, Kentucky
Historic Gas Station, Pineville, Bell County, Kentucky
Old Gas Station on US 68, Mercer County, Kentucky
Pure Oil Station, Paris, Kentucky
The Death of a Corner Gas Station in Newport, Kentucky
Old Filling Station, Whitesburg, Letcher County, Kentucky
I remember a similar gas station that used to stand at Main and Midland in Lexington.