Remnant fuel stations

[agentsteel53]

I never knew that.

I moved to CA in 2004, and thought of Valero as just being a part of the landscape. 

I've never noticed a Valero that was hastily rebranded from an Exxon or Mobil; but back in the day I never thought to look, and nowadays the company has had the time and prosperity to put up good examples of their own livery.

[roadman]

The most notable West Coast effect of the Exxon/Mobil merger: California Exxon franchisee Valero became an independent gas brand that has expanded quite nicely in the decade or so since.

Valero tried to make some inroads in the Boston area, but never really caught on.  The latest "upstart" in eastern Massachusetts I've noticed of late has been Hess, which has built a number of new stations from the ground up (as opposed to taking over another company's ones) in the past couple of years.

[agentsteel53]

Valero tried to make some inroads in the Boston area, but never really caught on.  The latest "upstart" in eastern Massachusetts I've noticed of late has been Hess, which has built a number of new stations from the ground up (as opposed to taking over another company's ones) in the past couple of years.

I remember a Hess station about a half-block from where I used to live in Cambridge, MA in 2003-04.  (I also remember its $1.55 gas.  those were the days!)

I seem to recall Hess in Massachusetts from my childhood, but not as distinctly as I remember it down in Pennsylvania.

[thenetwork]

Back in Ohio, even though Exxon hasn't been a major factor in over 30 years, many of their trademark "ladder sign" assemblies still remain: <iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&amp;source=embed&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q=Painesville,+OH&amp;aq=&amp;sll=38.997934,-105.550567&amp;sspn=4.93428,13.392334&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hq=&amp;hnear=Painesville,+Lake,+Ohio&amp;ll=41.724488,-81.245657&amp;spn=0.002315,0.006539&amp;t=m&amp;z=14&amp;layer=c&amp;cbll=41.708937,-81.1755&amp;panoid=995NUo0aJp3VOCWS601LCA&amp;cbp=12,314.92,,0,0&amp;output=svembed"></iframe><br /><small><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&amp;source=embed&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q=Painesville,+OH&amp;aq=&amp;sll=38.997934,-105.550567&amp;sspn=4.93428,13.392334&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hq=&amp;hnear=Painesville,+Lake,+Ohio&amp;ll=41.724488,-81.245657&amp;spn=0.002315,0.006539&amp;t=m&amp;z=14&amp;layer=c&amp;cbll=41.708937,-81.1755&amp;panoid=995NUo0aJp3VOCWS601LCA&amp;cbp=12,314.92,,0,0" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">View Larger Map</a></small>

That was a heck of a lot of metal for a simple Exxon sign which would sit on top of that assembly!

[kphoger]

Any of these left out there?:
Coastal
Kerr McGee

[US71]

Any of these left out there?:
Coastal
Kerr McGee

None that I have seen. The last Coastal I remember was Joplin, MO over 5 years ago. KM, I see an occasional sign, but they are all abandoned

[TheStranger]

I never knew that.

I moved to CA in 2004, and thought of Valero as just being a part of the landscape. 

I've never noticed a Valero that was hastily rebranded from an Exxon or Mobil; but back in the day I never thought to look, and nowadays the company has had the time and prosperity to put up good examples of their own livery.

Many Valero stations I've seen had a past life as another brand - the one nearest to me has architecture and signage suggesting it once was an Arco location.  In South San Francisco, a Chevron recently converted to that brand.

[US71]

Arkansas still has several FINA stations that haven't changed to ALON.

A local brand, Satterfield, just converted to Gulf.

[Takumi]

Valero tried to make some inroads in the Boston area, but never really caught on.  The latest "upstart" in eastern Massachusetts I've noticed of late has been Hess, which has built a number of new stations from the ground up (as opposed to taking over another company's ones) in the past couple of years.

I remember a Hess station about a half-block from where I used to live in Cambridge, MA in 2003-04.  (I also remember its $1.55 gas.  those were the days!)

I seem to recall Hess in Massachusetts from my childhood, but not as distinctly as I remember it down in Pennsylvania.

Hess has been in the Richmond area as long as I can remember, but there have always been only a few of them. According to their website (hessexpress.com) "there are over 1,300 of them on the East Coast".

[US71]

Hess has been in the Richmond area as long as I can remember, but there have always been only a few of them. According to their website (hessexpress.com) "there are over 1,300 of them on the East Coast".

Hess has one or two stations in the Little Rock area.

[kphoger]

Arkansas still has several FINA stations that haven't changed to ALON.

A local brand, Satterfield, just converted to Gulf.

I've seen quite a few Fina stations in Texas too.

[RoadWarrior56]

Here are a couple of very old gasoline brands that I remember:

Lion stations in NE Louisiana in the 60's

Red Bird stations in SW Indiana in the 60's and 70's

I know Red Bird is defunct, but I wonder if Lion is one of those brands that came back to life years later?

[agentsteel53]

I've seen quite a few Fina stations in Texas too.

I was just in New Mexico and should've paid more careful attention to what is going on with Fina.  I think it is getting rebranded, with a lot of them are being converted to entirely being Allsup's.  it used to be the case that Fina was the gasoline brand, and Allsup's the associated convenience store, but IIRC, all the Fina branding is vanishing.

(this information likely not 100% correct)

[corco]

Nope- Fina is now Alon. In my driving around FINA country in the past few months, about half are rebranded. Here's a transition billboard in Las Cruces



There's at least two in Arizona too on the rez- one in Window Rock and one in Kayenta.

[agentsteel53]

Nope- Fina is now Alon. In my driving around FINA country in the past few months, about half are rebranded. Here's a transition billboard in Las Cruces

that seems vaguely familiar.

shows how much attention I'm paying!

[Takumi]

I can't say I've ever seen a Fina. I do remember they had some NASCAR sponsorship in the 1990s.

On US 301 in the part of Virginia where it's I-95's frontage road, there's this old station that looks like it was the only one of its kind.


The pumps are still there, but I don't know how long this has been abandoned. I-95 didn't usurp US 301 here until 1981. Judging by the price, it could have made it until the 1990s. I know it was closed by 1998, though. (And judging by the shirt I was wearing, I had gone a good 15 miles out of my way after work to take these pictures before going home!)

[cpzilliacus]

Valero tried to make some inroads in the Boston area, but never really caught on.  The latest "upstart" in eastern Massachusetts I've noticed of late has been Hess, which has built a number of new stations from the ground up (as opposed to taking over another company's ones) in the past couple of years.

I remember a Hess station about a half-block from where I used to live in Cambridge, MA in 2003-04.  (I also remember its $1.55 gas.  those were the days!)

I seem to recall Hess in Massachusetts from my childhood, but not as distinctly as I remember it down in Pennsylvania.

Hess has been in the Richmond area as long as I can remember, but there have always been only a few of them. According to their website (hessexpress.com) "there are over 1,300 of them on the East Coast".

I know of a few Hess stations in the Washington, D.C. area that are closed, including a (formerly) super-high-volume location on U.S. 50 (New York Avenue, N.E.) at Montana Avenue that's fenced-off and weedy, though I believe that's because Wal-Mart has bought up most of the lots on a (large) triangle-shaped lot bounded by U.S. 50 on the north, Montana Avenue on the southwest and Bladensburg Road on the  southeast for one of its new D.C. stores.

[cpzilliacus]

Anyone remember Flying A? 

And Homoco (I am not kidding - it was short for Homes Oil Company, and once had a substantial independent presence in D.C. and its Maryland suburbs.

[roadman65]

Gulf in Florida is extinct!  Yet in New Jersey, they still exist!  On the other hand, Chevron's in NJ changed to Gulf years ago and still exist today in the Sunshine State.

[formulanone]

The pumps are still there, but I don't know how long this has been abandoned. I-95 didn't usurp US 301 here until 1981. Judging by the price, it could have made it until the 1990s. I know it was closed by 1998, though...

You don't see many pumps that had no provision for fuel that was over $1/gallon...wonder what they did in the late-1970s, when gas went past that mark. I did check out an old repair shop recently that had non-operational gas pumps which also featured two-digit + 9/10ths pricing.

[ce929wax]

Sunoco has made an appearance in eastern Tennessee.  I may be mistaken on this but I think I've seen them in western NC and northern GA.

Historically, back in the '60s and '70s they were all up and down the east coast.

Perhaps their resurgence in the south is due to being "The Official Fuel of NASCAR"

In addition to Sunoco, we also have quite a few Marathon stations, and last I checked in Knoxville there is an old Speedway station sign on Clinton Hwy.

[RoadWarrior56]

In reference to the sub $1 gas pump question, I am old enough to remember when that was a common situation.  What was done is that the gasoline was priced on the pump by the 1/2 gallon, with usually a crude hand-painted sign next to the pump stating such.  Thus if Gasoline were actually $1.10 a gallon, the pump price would read $0.55, but the money you owed would be correct, since it was measuing half-gallons, not gallons.

[formulanone]

^ That makes sense; I'm almost surprised that fuel distributors have not tried to sell by the liter or quart to make their product appear to be more affordable. But I suppose that individual states' consumer bureaus probably define and regulate the standard unit of fuel measurement as gallons, and thus, that's the way it is.

[cpzilliacus]

In reference to the sub $1 gas pump question, I am old enough to remember when that was a common situation.  What was done is that the gasoline was priced on the pump by the 1/2 gallon, with usually a crude hand-painted sign next to the pump stating such.  Thus if Gasoline were actually $1.10 a gallon, the pump price would read $0.55, but the money you owed would be correct, since it was measuing half-gallons, not gallons.

Some pumps were (re)calibrated to dispense fuel in liters, which kept the price well below $1.

[mightyace]

Valero tried to make some inroads in the Boston area, but never really caught on.  The latest "upstart" in eastern Massachusetts I've noticed of late has been Hess, which has built a number of new stations from the ground up (as opposed to taking over another company's ones) in the past couple of years.

I remember a Hess station about a half-block from where I used to live in Cambridge, MA in 2003-04.  (I also remember its $1.55 gas.  those were the days!)

I seem to recall Hess in Massachusetts from my childhood, but not as distinctly as I remember it down in Pennsylvania.

Hess has been in the Richmond area as long as I can remember, but there have always been only a few of them. According to their website (hessexpress.com) "there are over 1,300 of them on the East Coast".

I know of a few Hess stations in the Washington, D.C. area that are closed, including a (formerly) super-high-volume location on U.S. 50 (New York Avenue, N.E.) at Montana Avenue that's fenced-off and weedy, though I believe that's because Wal-Mart has bought up most of the lots on a (large) triangle-shaped lot bounded by U.S. 50 on the north, Montana Avenue on the southwest and Bladensburg Road on the  southeast for one of its new D.C. stores.

I remember Hess from my youth in PA.  Then, for a while, they disappeared.  In the last year or two, I've seen them crop up in TN and GA, often on truckstops also branded WILCO.