Gas For Less

Gas For Less, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

No Gas is more like it. This ancient vacuform sign is in Aurora, Illinois, tucked away around the corner of a building on a side street in a residential neighborhood. It's seen better days, clearly. It's still got a little towing globe on the top (which is all busted up), and it used to say "& Body" where it now says "Repair".

There are no gas pumps in evidence anymore, but I think some sort of repair work still goes on here. Spotted from a bike path that goes right by this building, reinforcing my opinion that it pays to walk around the back streets.

Corner Station

Corner Station, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

A 1950-ish hot rod Chevrolet pickup truck. It's signwritten for a fake garage (note the "KL5" phone number: it translates to "555"). It's parked in front of an old filling station that now sells vintage gas pumps and other petroliana. The owner parks it out front to draw attention to his business-and it works pretty well.

Sunoco

Sunoco, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

A very old plastic Sunoco sign, on the side of a repair shop in Paw Paw, Illinois. I have no idea if this was a Sunoco station at some time or not-it was one of those generic looking cinderblock garages, so it could've switched brands plenty of times. Heck, it may have never been a gas station at all-I didn't notice any remnants of a pump island or anything.

This looks suspiciously like one half of a plastic illuminated sign, so maybe it was hung there as decoration.

Tokheim

Tokheim, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

Today one of the world's largest manufacturers of fuel dispensers, Tokheim has it's beginnings in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the late 1800's. While working in a hardware store, Norwegian John J. Tokheim began to think of a safer way to store and dispense fuel. This led to the patenting of the Tokheim Oil Dome Pump, and in 1901 the formation of the Tokheim Manufacturing Company. Tokheim was sold, and moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where the company was based for many years.

This chromed logo is on the front of a vintage Mobil pump, an pre-war visible model.

Dino Supreme

Dino Supreme, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

Sinclair gasoline has been sold since the early 1900's, and is one of the oldest brands still in use. It's also well known for it's green dinosaur logo, which dates to the 1930's. Sinclair sponsored a dinosaur exhibit at the 1933-34 Chicago World's Fair, to demonstrate the correlation between gasoline and the age of dinosaurs. The exhibit included a big, animatronic Brontosaurus, and led to a popular line of Bronto promotional toys given away at the stations. The rest, as they say, is history, and Dino became the company's mascot. This station, in Wisconsin Dells, even features a big Dino the Dinosaur straddling the station's entrance.

Sprague's Super Service

Sprague's , a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

Opened in 1931, Sprague's Super Service was a large gas station and cafe along Route 66, on what was then the outskirts of Normal, Illinois. It housed several different restaurants and stations, and was used until 1976. This old sign is the only one that remains, although the building is still in very nice condition.

Now on the National Register of Historic Places, there are hopes that this Route 66 classic can be reopened.

Red Crown

Red Crown, originally uploaded by William 74.

Another day, another old gas station. This is the beautifully restored Standard station in Rochelle, IL. A Lincoln Highway landmark.

Fill 'er up

Sky Chief-TTV, originally uploaded by William 74.

We're back at the beautifully restored Texaco station in Dwight, Illinois, for this week's Through The Viewfinder Tuesday! I've talked about this station before, so I won't say anything except that if you're in the area this summer you totally should go and take a bunch of photos, say hello to the volunteers who run the place, buy a soda pop, and sign the guestbook.

I've also warbled on at length about TtV photography so I'll skip that too, except to say "is it live, or is it Full-Vue?"

Now, for some serious business. Do you like what you see here? Think the pictures are pretty, and you wish you could look at stuff like this all the time, and not just when you turn on your computer and point the interweb browser to this site? Well, now you can! We here at View. Found. are proud to announce that our chief photographer (oaky, it's me) has his own website! See more here!

Trust Your Car To The Man Who Wears The Star

Texaco, originally uploaded by William 74.

The Texaco Star! This is the classic Texaco "banjo" sign, which at one time was a common sight in the United States-Texaco is the only petroleum company to sell gas in all 50 states under the same branding. These days, Texaco is a regional brand (there aren't any around here anymore), and the stations that remain don't have banjo signs anymore. This one is in front of the Ambler's Texaco in Dwight, Illinois, along historic Route 66.