Whiting Brothers Gasoline Stations

The four Whiting brothers began selling gasoline to motorists in 1917. Automobiles were a novelty, particularly way out West, and gasoline was distributed wholesale in 55 gallon drums. Motorists then bought retail gasoline in small cans for their automobiles. Full-time, dedicated gasoline “service stations” were unheard of: the business of selling cans of gasoline to early motorists was just another product line for general stores or other businesses, like selling kerosene for lamps. With the growth of both roadways and automobiles and the advent of the gravity-fed pump, gasoline could be shipped and stored in large tanks (above ground initially and later below ground) and the gasoline could be hand-pumped into a glass receptacle atop the pump and then through the activation of a valve allowed to drain down through a rubber hose into the automobile gasoline tank. Electric gasoline pumps followed making the filling of gas tanks easier and quicker.

With the growing popularity of automobiles, the Whiting Brothers began pumping gasoline in St. Johns, Arizona, but quickly moved north to US Highway 66 in Holbrook, Arizona, when it was apparent that US 66 would be the main road from the East and Chicago to Los Angeles. The brothers soon expanded to Winslow and Flagstaff and eventually all along US 66 and north into Utah and Colorado and south to the Mexican border reaching over one hundred gasoline stations at their peak.

In the early days the business of selling gasoline to motorists was overwhelmingly dominated by small individual business people who made deals with the major gasoline refiners to sell their product along the roadside. But in time this would change dramatically. The large petroleum refiners themselves, backed by their accumulation of corporate cash, aggressively entered into the retail sales business. Corporate marketing promoted the benefits of their gasoline (and its additives) and features such as clean rest rooms and uniformed attendants. New corporate architectural design of the service station building also helped promote the brand name in motorists' minds.

The Whiting Brothers gasoline stations were spare by the standards of the day. As the major branded gasoline companies tried out different architectural styles for their stations, ranging from the cottage style for a time used by Phillips 66, something akin to a ranch home with a front “chimney” used by Shell, to enameled panels used by several others, the Whiting Brothers built their stations of wood, stucco, and, what I recall most often from the 1960s anyway, concrete block. Many stations were not much more than an office, storage and rest rooms, while others had multiple service bays. The gasoline stations were painted a bright white with bands in the company colors of yellow and red accenting the buildings along the top and/or bottom of the walls and pump canopies. The elevated highway sign with red letters on a yellow background seen above the building canopy or perhaps atop tall posts to improve highway visibility evolved as did their signature shield emblem.

Perhaps unique to the Whiting Brothers were their attention-getting roadside signs that ran from the highway shoulder out a hundred feet or more somewhat perpendicular to the roadway. These signboards were like fences and they were painted with red letters on a yellow background. See the photograph at the upper right. These fence-like signboards appeared periodically to remind travelers that they were approaching a Whiting Brothers gasoline station. I believe that these long signs have been gone from all the highways for at least two decades now.

The Whiting Brothers were fairly innovative when it came to business practices. Discount cards offered customers a reason to become loyal to their gasoline brand. Most of the operators/managers of the gasoline stations had small living quarters provided for them either on site or on an adjacent property. A base salary was guaranteed but incentives were in place for them to provide good service and cultivate repeat business.

The Whiting Brothers offered gasoline for a few cents less per gallon than the major branded gasoline that competed in their retail area. By carving out this low-cost niche, their gasoline business thrived for decades, particularly after World War II. But then came the Interstate highway system. As segments of the interstate highways were completed and opened in the 1960s and 1970s, vehicle traffic moved to these new limited-access freeways that bypassed the towns. The local town businesses established on the old two-lane highways that catered to travelers suffered severely. Large gasoline companies replaced in-town stations with modern stations at the exits off the Interstate highways but the Whiting Brothers did not do so. The “gas crises” years of the early 1970s disrupted supplies and the gasoline business slumped and was no longer particularly profitable. The management of the Whiting Brothers enterprise began unwinding from their roadside properties.

The one operating gasoline station that still has its original Whiting Brothers gasoline signage is at 421 East Route 66 (New Mexico state route 333 and Business Route 40) in Moriarty, New Mexico. Owner Sal Lucero began working for the brothers themselves over 40 years ago and purchased the station in 1985 as the managing generation of the family was in the process of disengaging from the business. Sal buys his gasoline from a wholesale distributor now of course. The last time I was by Sal was fixing a flat tire for a friend. There is not much gasoline pumping business on old 66 away from the Interstate in Moriarty, anymore, not like the old days. The newest gasoline stations with the national brands do the high-volume business out on Interstate 40 but Sal has kept his station going. This photogenic old station is worth a picture stop and the topping of your tank.

In the halcyon years over 40 Whiting Brothers gasoline stations were located on Route 66. See the detailed map below. Towns represented included the large and the very small (from west to east): Lenwood, Barstow, Newberry, Cadiz, and Needles in California; Yucca, Kingman, Truxton, Seligman, Ash Fork, Williams, Bellemont, Flagstaff, Winslow, Holbrook, Sanders and Lupton in Arizona; Gallup, Continental Divide, Grants, San Fidel, Albuquerque, Moriarty, Santa Rosa, Newkirk, Tucumcari, and San Jon in New Mexico; and Vega, Amarillo, Groom, and Shamrock in Texas. Many towns on Route 66 had more than one Whiting Brothers gasoline station. Note that these well-planned gasoline stop locations were quite regularly spaced for the traveler’s convenience from the Texas panhandle through to the Mojave Desert in California.

The ownership of the old Whiting Brothers gasoline stations as well as the motels, Ford agencies, etc., is in many other hands today. Buildings that still had useful life and in locations for which there was some demand were sold to new owners. Most gasoline stations along Route 66 are gone now but some have been re-used. One is a café and one is a welding/truck repair shop at last report. Most of the motels were sold to new operators who renamed them. Old Whiting Brothers signage stands in only a few locations today and ironically, the most prominent and well-photographed locations are the business locations that could not be sold to others and were left frozen in their Whiting Brothers state. Most of the locations that were not particularly marketable because of their locations far from the interstate freeways or in towns that no longer attracted travelers were razed or abandoned. Why the demolition process sometimes left the original Whiting Brothers signs is not known to me but it is nice for all of us I think.

Few Whiting Brothers gasoline station structures still exist on old Route 66. My incomplete list includes (from west to east): Newberry, CA; Winslow, AZ (2); Holbrook, AZ (2); Continental Divide, NM; San Fidel, NM; and Moriarty, NM. The EZ66 Guide for Travelers, written by Jerry McClanahan, mentions an abandoned station in San Jon, NM. A website reports that an old Whiting Brothers gasoline station in Shamrock, TX, is now a cafe. One old station that for many years was a used car lot office in Gallup was finally replaced in the about three years by a modern building. There are probably a few other structures that still exist from the Whiting Brothers chain in locations that were not on US Highway 66. Although the gasoline stations no longer exist, you can find original signage in Yucca, AZ and San Fidel, NM where a motel and gasoline station that once shared the each premises were razed, and at the Continental Divide where the old motel soldiers on under a new official name but under the original signage. Other sign-only sites are in western Albuquerque next to the former Whiting Brothers motel and in Tucumcari, NM on the east side. (The signboards at these two locations have the distinctive appendage on the end where the Whiting Brothers shield once was but both are painted white today, so look carefully.) Under coats of peeling paint, some renamed businesses may still sport the Whiting Brothers signage and colors. It makes for interesting detective work to try to locate the old gasoline stations should they still exist.

A New Generation of Whiting Stations?