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Wagon Wheel |
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01/20/2005
Down on Broadway
Marilyn Dodgen
Back in the
1930s and 1940s, there were 22 filling stations on Broadway (also
known as Hwy. 169 today). This is the second part of John Van Horn's
account of those stations; the first part having been featured in
the Jan. 6 Independent.
Across the street north from Johnny's Conoco was the APCO station.
It was not full service. Dean Beman and Galen Sharp were the
operators of that station. After it closed, Carla Pedersen operated
a used car sales office out of that building for a while, and in the
early 1980s sold it to W&H Coop, who were formerly located on the
east end of Sumner Avenue.
They were a full service station and, over the years, had
many (often retired) men, who provided good pump service to
the customers, including Don Bowen, Walt Ely, Ed Snyder, Harvey
LaBounty, Jason Haukoos, Adam Vandevanter, Bill Greene, Larry
Danielson, Elwin Hodges, and inside, Connie Riles and David Elbert.
They were the first station to adopt the Cardtrol system of
self-service at the gas pump, after hours, and the first station to
sell gasohol in this area. Ron Kraft of Dakota City was employed by
W&H Coop from 1960, working in Badger and Goldfield, before coming
to Humboldt. He worked as a service/mechanic for almost 40
years, and retired in the spring of 1998.
The station closed at their Broadway location to move to a newly
constructed convenience store/station at the intersection of Hwy. 3
and 169 (the former Corner Inn location), under the name of Ampride,
in September of 2001. Sharon Pflibsen is the manager; Pam Hendrix is
assistant manager, and Eugene Ernst is their maintenance man. They
employ 13 people (part-time and full-time).
In the 1960s, Kerr/McGee built a station on the west side of Hwy.
169, across from Johnny's Conoco Station. It operated as a
convenience/self service station, and was leased to several
men over the years it was in operation. Arne Plathe may have been
the first leasee. Doug Altman ran it for a couple of years and then
decided to return to school.
Rick Kuhlman leased the station when he got out of college and
didn't yet have a teaching job. As soon as he signed the lease,
according to his dad, he was offered his first coaching job at ICCC
in Fort Dodge and had to find someone to fulfill that lease for him
so he hired Rick Anderson and Mike Stoner.
Norm Peterson and Bob Mickey owned the station jointly for two
years, in the mid-1970s, and Norm ran it along with his new car
agency, with the help of Tom Reimers and several others. Merlin Fort
was the last to take over the station and ran it for 15 years, until
it closed in 1991. He said that of all the stations he ran since he
was a teenager, this was his favorite.
A lot of young people hung out there and they all had nicknames (see
his ad). Nothing remains of that station but the cement platform.
Traveling north to the corner of 6th Ave. North and Hwy. 169, on the
east side, A.C. "Junkey" Summers built a station and auto repair
shop that sat side by side, with the station on the south side. Leo
Laing operated it for years, with the help of his son, Gordon.
Later, two brothers from Livermore, Fritz and Everett Andersen,
replaced these buildings with a large combination filling station,
shop and car dealership for Chrysler and Plymouth cars. They ran it
until the corner lot and buildings were sold to Godfathers Pizza,
who demolished the old building and built their new facility there
in 1983.
A block north, Casey's General Store built a convenience
store/service station in 1978 and it did business there until the
company built a larger store on the four corners of Hwy. 169 and
Hwy. 3 in 1993. Managers at the first store were Deb Torgerson,
Lavonne Hoover, Shari Sorensen, and Linda Westberg.
Manager of the Casey's on the highway intersection is Marcia Kampen.
The older building is still there and housed Ed's Auto Mart until
September, when McGregor & Dodge, Inc., out of Algona, opened a
branch there.
In the 1960s, a Holiday station was built a block north, on the
corner of 8th Ave. North, managed over the years by Jerry Johnson,
Mark Hyland and Duane Van Horn. That station is now a Kum & Go,
managed by Jodi Anderson.
Across the street, north, Harold Parsons built a new Ford Dealership
Garage after World War II. He put in gasoline pumps and sold Texaco
gasoline for a while and then dropped the sale of gasoline.
Where Jensen Trailer Co. is now located, Homer Bjornson built
Bjornson Truck Stop, a large building that housed a Nash/Rambler car
dealership, a garage and filling station that sold Mobile products.
Stan Ulrich managed the service department.
In later years, Gordon Laing operated an auto parts service
out of that building. When he moved his business up to the corner on
Wildcat Road, Bill Benton purchased the facility and operated a
truck stop and boat dealership.
There was also a 24-hour caf on the south side of the building.
Marvin Andersen, former Humboldt County Sheriff, said that he ate
many meals there, especially late at night.
He especially remembers Aunt Bea (Faulkner), who worked the night
shift and could only handle one order at a time, from taking the
order to serving the food and then she would take the next order.
She was a good worker and was well liked by her customers. She had a
room at the Corner Inn Motel that Jerry and Rosemary Diedrick owned.
Over the years, people who ran the caf included Bob and Ione Decker,
Bill and Juanita Benton, Gerald Heim, and Jim and Marlene Hamilton.
Some of the women who worked there were Lois Riles, Donna Beers,
Mardell Boyd, Karen Beseke, Charlene Olson, Lucille Stiles, Wanda
Scott, and Cindy and Robin Lee. Terry Riles worked at the station.
Lois Riles said they had a lot of regular customers and would honor
them on their birthdays, and she had a lot of fun working there.
When Bill Benton died in 1981, his wife, Juanita, ran the station
for a few years and then closed it. She had two young children to
raise and moved her family to Fort Dodge, where today she is head
cook at Butler Elementary School, and was recently honored for her
dedication to her job. The old truck stop building is now part of
the Jensen Trailer complex.
In the 1950s, on the southeast corner of Highways 3 and 169, where
the Casey's General Store is now located, a new Standard Oil
Service station was built. Robert Wittman was the first
operator. Others who ran the station were Wes Gochenour, who put in
the first Robo Car Wash in the mid 1950s.
Other operators were Tom McBurney and Ken Perin (who had closed his
station on Sumner Avenue, where the Sittin' Bull now stands). Bea
Gochenour said she remembers the heavy rains that flooded their
corner in 1963, when their station was surrounded by water and they
worried about being electrocuted by underground wires.
Across Hwy. 3, where Hardee's is now located, stood a Mobile Oil
Station. Some of the operators were Stan Ulrich, Frank Shimon, Loren
Miner, Victor Meyer, Floyd Johnson, and John Raine. It was sold and
demolished when Hardee's built there in 1983.
Across the intersection on the southwest corner, in the 1950s, a new
station was built. It sold City Service products and was a
full service station run first by Phil Lane and then by Le
Roy Petersen. He and his wife, Marian, ran the station together and
she sold handcrafted items that she made, at the station.
Their daughter, Sharon Robinson, said that her mom had to use a
short step stool so she could reach across when cleaning the
windshields of the cars she was servicing. They also held family
gatherings at the station, because the folks always had to be at
work, and the grandchildren loved playing on the hoist in the garage
area. Le Roy and Marian kept the shelves in the station stocked with
candy and had a pop machine.
The snow blew in from all directions on that corner, and Le Roy
cleaned the driveway with a small tractor and blade, which was often
dwarfed by the high piles of show. Neighborhood kids really had fun
sliding down those piles of snow.
The Petersens retired in 1980. The vacant building was purchased and
remodeled (and added to) by Rolland and Mark Tiesenthaler of Al's
Corner Oil at Carroll, turning it into a convenience store/filling
station they named Humboldt Country Store. Jane Etherington was the
first manager, followed by Amy Benjamin and Janet Paulson. It was
renamed Sparky's One Stop #5, in 1995, is open 24 hours round the
clock, and is managed by Mary Fokken, who has worked there 17 years.
West of this corner was a station built by Albert Swensen, sometime
in the early 1950s. He sold Conoco products and it was a full
service station. Larry Danielson was the second owner, and other
operators were Bob Lindhart, Jerry George and Mark Newton.
Eunice Danielson ran the caf in the east side of the building for a
while, and then Darlene Lindley. Darlene was known for her good
cinnamon rolls. The building was eventually sold to Butch Skow for a
car dealership.
The building is presently owned by Bryon Wadsley and houses Bryon's
Automotive. Brian and Kevin Skow lease the sales lot as Springvale
Motors, and both businesses share the building with their offices.
Going back south, from the corner, was a station built by Duke
Collins back in the 1930s that handled Standard Oil products. Then,
Dip and Mabel Buchan moved to Humboldt with their family and bought
the station/restaurant. He added a two-bay service department
to the south side of the old building and Mabel ran the caf.
Their son, Robert, who lives in Mesa, AZ, said that the city refused
to extend the city water supply from a half block away, so he and
his brother carried water to the caf from a well out back, so his
mother had water to cook with and for customers to drink.
The family lived in a small house behind the station. Then they
moved the house to the back of that block and built a 12-room motel.
They lived in an end unit and by then had running water. Years
later, the motel was purchased in the 1960s by Robert and Ruth
Sanders, who added a second story to the existing Buchan Motel and
renamed it the Broadway Motel. The station was demolished around
that time.
On the corner south, stood a station built by Lars Ringsburg in the
1920s or 1930s. He also had a wrecking yard behind, where Val
Pedersen said, that when he was a youngster, he would take old metal
items there to sell (he remembers a teakettle as one item). Ringburg
also sold car parts.
The station was eventually torn down and a vacant lot remained,
until Don and Keith Logue built a new Texaco station there. They
later leased it to several different operators, and then it was
purchased by John Raine, who owns and operates the station today.
On the northern outskirts of town, across from Dodgen Industries,
stood The Wagon Wheel gas station and restaurant/lounge. There were
cabins behind, and the operation was run by Pop Wilhite and his wife
in the 1930s. The restaurant survived into the mid 1980s and was run
by Paul and Glorene Foley and later by Dean and Delores Weier.
In recent years, after the business closed and the trailer park in
back was closed, the property was cleared of all buildings and is
now owned by Dodgen Industries.
For reasons nobody can explain, there were two filling stations
located several blocks east of Broadway, on the west end of the old
football field on 9th Avenue north.
On the corner of North 9th Street and 8th Avenue North, stood a
brick station run by a family by the name of Douglas. It was
actually the first convenience-style store in Humboldt, selling
grocery items, and kerosene for cooking and heating stoves and
gasoline for automobiles. It closed sometime in the 1940s and was
torn down many years later to make way for a brick duplex that was
built on that corner.
On down the street to the south, across west on the corner of 7th
Ave. North and North 9th St., was a house, and to the north was a
small station built by Cap Klein that was very unique in style. He
built a boat out of fieldstones, to the south of the main building,
and it had a metal sail attached. He sold gasoline and oil.
When John and Doris Van Horn were first married, in 1948, they lived
across the street from Cap's house, on the corner. The boat was
still there, but the station was gone. Cap closed the station and
became a longtime custodian at what is now the Humboldt Middle High
School, but was then the high school building.
So, ends the saga of the filling stations that once were an
important part of Humboldt's history, with special thanks to John
Van Horn, Russell Christensen, Pete Holt, and many others who
furnished information and pictures.
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