Fill ‘Er Up: The Great
American Gas Station (Americana)
By Tim Russell
Crestine: Reprint Edition
ISBN #978-0785829867
Price $11.68
208 Pages
Rating 5-Stars
“The History of An American
Institution”
British author, Tim Russell, fell in love with the
American gas stations while attending college in the US. A lifetime of interest
in gas stations led him to study and collect everything concerning them, which
eventually led to this fascinating book. Filled with many color and black &
white photographs, it chronicles the history of the many service stations,
their mottos, and advertisements. Remember when men – and women – gave the
motorists full service?
As a young boy I remember gas stations on just about
every block in Seymour, Texas, and almost the same in Wichita Falls, Texas,
where I spent my formative years. In the summer of 1958, before enlisting in
the Army, I worked at the Hill Top Truck Stop, several miles outside Seymour,
pumping gas in the evenings and on the night shift. How well I remember
climbing up on semi-trucks to clean the bugs off windshields! I don’t remember
what gasoline we carried, but the Truck Stop had a small café, where my sister
worked; that’s how I got the job in the first place. The owner was a mechanic
and fixed flats. I did not have to do anything but give full service; although
in the evenings and over night I also sold pre-packaged sandwiches that my
sister had prepared. I also remember the many gimmicks the gas stations used to
get regular customers to come back. In the early days they gave the kids a
cartoon strip of an aviation hero (though I don’t remember the hero’s name), a
goldfish in a plastic envelope, Green Stamps (?), or special glassware. My wife
would send me to the same station every time to be sure to get one of their
glasses she was collecting. I also recall the time I drove into a station and
asked them to check the oil, water and air, and was told, “We don’t do that any
more.” I was shocked. The Texaco man was no more.
People my age will enjoy the memories this book brings
back. Maybe even the younger generation that heard their parents and
grandparents speak of the “full-service” gas stations will want to see what it
was all about. But to everyone who reads this book, I think it will give them a
taste of Americana, and a time when service meant something. Well worth the
small price.
Tom Johnson
Echoes Magazine
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