I've probably asked this question before on this blog: are you picky about where you buy your gas? How about when you were younger?
Many of us remember when all the major brands of gasoline were represented in our area: Sohio, Sunoco, Gulf, Shell, Texaco, Sinclair, Pure, Cities Service, Clark, etc. We all had our favorites for various reasons.
Some of these brands, such as Sunoco and Shell, are still around. There are even some ersatz Pure stations that don't seem to have any connection to the classic brand. And there are a lot of weird ones too, such as RaceWay.
Anyway, I was surprised to see in the ad below that Lorain had two Humble stations: one at 2221 E. 42nd Street and one at 1313 Broadway. The ad ran in the Journal on September 16, 1964.
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| The Humble Tiger was featured on many promotional items |
7 comments:
In my early driving days in the 1980's, I always got my gas at Sohio. Gas was the only thing I charged on my first credit card. Paid it off every month and established some credit.
Nowadays, I go to Meijer to fill up since you get 10 cents off when using your Meijer card. Paid $2.76 a gallon the other day, long time since it's been below $3.
For us, in our small hometown, it was more the personality of the owner than the company that determined where you bought.
The Downings ran the Mobil station. The Harneds, sold Gulf. The Keans had Atlantic. By the time I was driving, there was the "cut-rate place that sold junk gas." That's what I bought.
My grandpa got big Humble Tiger paw print decals during that grand opening and put them on his tavern floor - danced the cha-cha right over those decals. Gas stations were definitely more family friendly and service oriented, as everything seemed to be then. Grandpa brought us Sinclair dinosaur green soaps too - such fun mascots of tigers and dinos! I miss the days of getting the windshield cleaned by the attendant while filling up in a mini-skirt (me in the mini-not the attendant)!
My father always swore by Sohio which later turned into BP.He fell for the "no fuel line freeze up or Sohio pays your tow" slogan that they used to preach.He would even pay their higher rip off prices even if there was cheaper gas around just to have their gas in his tank.Personally nowadays I use BJ's gas.It's worth it to be a member for the gas savings alone.And I've never had any fuel line freeze ups.I did have an aluminum 4 bbl carb that would ice over but that had nothing to do with the gasoline as I had a ram air snorkel on the air cleaner at the time.
Humble started in Humble, Texas, strangely pronounced with a silent "H" down here. Umble. There's still a Humble Building downtown Houston that used to be their corporate headquarters.
I think what I miss most is the ding-ding sound when you pulled in and ran over the hose!
I picked up a set of those ding-ding bells at a garage sale a few years back.Mounted them on a post in the yard and put new rubber hoses on them and they work just like at an old gas station.
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