No other gasoline company retailer was associated more with the western half of Route 66 than the Whiting Brothers. The four Whiting brothers were principally in the lumber business when they opened their first gasoline station in St. Johns in eastern Arizona. Some paper collectibles say that this station was opened in 1917 which was well before the advent of the numbered federal highway system which began in 1926. The brothers later opened their first gasoline station on Route 66 in the town of Holbrook, about 60 miles northwest of St. Johns, and then added stations in Winslow and Flagstaff and eventually all along on Route 66 from the California desert to Shamrock, Texas. But their stations were not exclusive to Route 66. At their peak they had over one hundred gasoline stations from the border with Mexico north to Las Vegas and Utah and into Colorado, seven states in all.
Whiting Brothers gasoline was known to cost a few pennies per gallon less than the major branded gasoline marketed in their shared territory and so attracted budget-conscious travelers and local residents.
In addition to their gasoline stations the Whiting Brothers at one time operated motels and automobile dealerships. A small grocery store was part of at least one of their Route 66 motel and gas station complexes, a concept that seems far ahead of its time given today’s proliferation of convenience stores from coast to coast that also sell gasoline.
As the two-lane federal highways in the Southwest were gradually replaced by four-lane interstate highways, the principal demand for gasoline stations and much of the demand for overnight lodging moved to the new freeway exits. The major gasoline station companies and lodging franchise companies built new facilities at the preferred interchange locations but the then-management of the Whiting Brothers' enterprise did not. The remaining operations atrophied and eventually the businesses were sold off or closed or razed piecemeal. However even today the observant traveler can still find lineage of the Whiting Brothers enterprises alongside the old roads of the Southwest.