Thursday, July 9, 2015

The Gas Station by Old Lake Road

November 1962 Lorain Phone Book ad
I did a little digging at the library on Tuesday night, and confirmed that the gas station that was located on Route 6 at its intersection with Old Lake Road was indeed a Shell station as Bill Rees remembered.

Allen's Shell Service was the name of the service station seen in the vintage aerial photographs. That's its November 1962 Lorain Phone Book ad at the top of this post.

I don't know exactly when it opened, because that stretch of Route 6 was not included in the Lorain city directories until the 1960 edition (which did list Allen's Shell Service). I did notice that the 1954 Lorain County Farm & Rural Directory – which lists everything on the highway from the Erie County Line east to Lorain City Limits – did not indicate that the gas station was there then.

Allen's Shell Service continued to be listed in the directory until the 1967 book, when its listing changed to West Erie Avenue Shell.

The 7251 W. Erie Avenue address went vacant in the 1968 edition, apparently bringing an end to 24 hour wrecker and road service along that stretch of the highway. There's still not a lot of commercial development out that way now, so Allen's Shell Service must have seemed like a real oasis during its heyday.

2 comments:

  1. I was born in 71 so I don't really remember this service station. I tried to point out the area to some younger folks while passing by recently and was asked what a service station is. If you were born in the 80's, you may not have ever used a true service station. Not too many of them left. I grew up on the eastside and my neighborhood service station converted their service area over to video rental in the mid 80's. Today's stations are more like gas-n-grocery superstores.

    Anyway, got me thinking about necessary everyday things that disappear from our lives over time. Here is a link to a page with an interesting list of items that kids born in 2015 will never know about...

    http://finance.yahoo.com/news/25-things-babies-born-2014-120045750.html

    Thanks for your research Dan!!

    Victor

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  2. Hi Victor!
    Thanks for your comment and the link, which has some clever observations!
    I knew service stations were in trouble when one of my college roomies who worked for BP told me way back in the mid-80s that they made more money selling chips and pop than selling gas.

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