Filling Stations

Kittitas County is littered with old gas stations from the bygone age of travel, from Snoqualmie Summit to Vantage there are tens of old filling stations. These are relics of a time of two lane black top and cars that got 8 mpg, done in by progress and technology. As you look beyond the Interstate you see them, ghosts from a time in the not so distance past, when cross state travel wasn't an undertaking done without care and planning. Spokane could be 2 or 3 tanks of gas depending on the car and the starting point of the trip. These old gas stations, where a product of their times, some had restaurants, some had garages and some just had pumps. Some had unique architecture and some were more traditional, some were in the cities and towns the highways rolled through, some were in the country, beckoning weary travellers with neon signs and a hot meal or ice cold Coca-Cola.

But when the Interstates were finished and the easy access taken away, these places were among the first to wither and disappear from the landscape, leaving only memories and the buildings behind. Tonight a filling station on U.S. 10 east of Ellensburg. I have seen photos of this station from the 1950's on a snowy day, it was Texaco with a restaurant. This photo is from 1994, the awning over the pumps lasted only one more winter before it collapsed.