20 Vintage Photos of Gas Stations From the 1920s to the 1980s

Nobody’s happy to be at a gas station, but maybe that’s a recent development of society. Back in the day, gas stations were a nice, relaxing break. You could unwind, have somebody else pump your gas, enjoy a snack, and not spend half the money you have to your name. 

Miss those days? Here are 20 vintage photos of gas stations from way back when. 

Cool old-school hose. I bet teenagers tried to spray each other with those things. 

Look at this official-looking guy right here. He’s pouring himself some motor oil like a cup of coffee. 

15 cent gas! My, oh, my. 

Gas station attendants used to wear suits and ties, which is pretty wild.  

Color blast! The Safeway here has allegedly been converted to condos. 

Ladas, Russian-made cars, were clearly on blast here during the Cold War. 

Texaco isn’t even advertising its own name as hard as it's advertising “apple candy,” which are small cube-shaped candies made with apples, sugar, and gelatin. Those things must have been flying off the shelves in ‘50s Virginia. You can still buy apple candy from the family-owned Millcroft Farms, which bought the historic Shenandoah Candy Co. (advertised here) in 1997.

I am salivating over that 28 cent price tag here at Signal Gas. 

If I were driving around Ann Arbor in 1938, I too would make sure that I only pulled up in a car that was the exact same color as the pumps. 

It’s easy to comment on how cheap gas was here at 9 and a half cents per gallon, but tax is 4 cents? That’s almost 50 percent!  

There’s something satisfyingly symmetrical about pumping gas directly through the center of the car like this. Car fans deduced that this bad boy was ‘69-’71 Chevy Nova. 

This looks simultaneously extremely old, and also extremely futuristic. The car port looks like the underside of the dang ship from “Space Jam.” 

This guy is apparently a gas station attendant, but he looks more like somebody who’s been assigned to work on the atomic bomb. He’s got a fistful of miscellaneous electronics, and he’s staring down the barrel of the camera like he’s gonna die. This is not a happy fella.  

Metal can: check. ‘80s hair: check. Faded and yellowed image: check. Vintage photo achieved. 

One time I had to wait about four extra minutes for gas and I nearly threw a fit. Good thing I didn’t have to live through the Gas Crisis of ‘73, which occurred when a huge petroleum company stopped exporting oil to America (and anybody else supporting Israel at the time of the Yom Kippur War), which made prices explode, and lines end up like this. 

Am I losing my mind or does this woman look like a cardboard cutout? Is this a real town? Or is this the Universal backlot? 

Do you know Chula Vista? Sleuths in the comments section of this one have deduced that the photo is facing north. 

If you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere on a dusty roadtrip, and you see a sign that says “Flats fixed” and “Ice,” then things are probably about to start looking up. Unless you’re in a horror movie. Then things are certainly not looking up. 

The more you look at this, the more it looks like both men on the right side of the photo are staring at the woman on the left side of the photo as she pumped gas. There are storylines everywhere, folks. 

When tax for the gas cost more than the actual gas itself. I wonder if anybody is going to go to Chop Suey.