From 1962 through 1965 my family lived on Elm Street in Milford, New Hampshire. On my way to and from school every day I had to walk right in front of this station. It was called Roscoe Coburn’s Garage. By that time it was rebranded to something like ESSO. Roscoe was a life-long resident of Milford and served in WWI and as a Milford Selectman. Bernice Perry photo. December 4th, 1948.
I remember Tydol. Assumed it was an acronym like SOCONY, ESSO, or SOHIO, but never knew what it meant.
I seem to recall it was a trade name used by Tidewater. It was merged into another company at some later point.
I've got one... .... that a friend gave me some years ago when I was going to fix the front of the shop up as an old gas station. Not going to happen now. If anyone can use it they can have it for 'free'. Come and get it, Sumner
Most folks these days have never even heard of "Bulk" oil. I actually had one of these in one of my repair shops. It was a good condition. I used it for storing drain oil. Also had an old portable hand pump for gear oil. Used it for years.
Ahh, West Texas at its best. "Where there's more rivers and less water, more cows and less milk, and you can see farther and see less, than any other place." When my wife moved from Utah to Texas to teach school before I met her, her brother helped her move. As he was driving from Amarillo to DFW along US 287, she was reading a book. After an hour or so of reading, she looked up and noticed it appeared about the same as the last time she had looked. Lots of nothing... I kinda like it. We have driven that route for the last 30+ years to visit her family. There's lots to see if you know where/what to look for: Old abandoned grain elevators (and some still in use); circular, irrigated fields around water well heads; trains waiting 'in the hole,' for another to pass; old towns that are mere shadows of their former glory. My grandfather joked that one summer on their farm, the rain barrel dried up, tipped over, and blew away on the south wind. Come winter time, the north wind blew it back home, worn all the way down to the size of a nail keg. Now there are lots of windmills, but not so many of the water-pumping kind. The latter have been replaced with solar panels and electric pumps in remote areas.
I assumed rhikdavis was referring to the image in this post. https://www.trainboard.com/highball...nd-of-gas-stations.86175/page-41#post-1244220 Yeah, the dish shaped objects in the TYDOL image light up the sign. Back before internal lighted signs were standard.
Man oh man if you or I was closer i sure would come take that off your hands . im collecting for future shop build. already have a bunch of stuff but im always looking for more . like old gas pumps that are hard to find at a reasonable price stuff like that.. been looking for a new house witha large shop but no luck yet (price wise )
I was thinking those were the dish shaped objects, on the TYDOL sign. Some of those were still around when I was a youth. That one in the post you linked sure does not look like it could be a light. I don't really see a bulb-ish item in the center. Whatever that is... Certainly is very exposed to weather, if somehow a light fixture.
Having spent years as a screw machine operator, I developed somewhat of a "nose" for various types of oils. Judging by the odor I would suspect that gear lube has a sulphur content. Not sure what the benefit of this would be, although it does have a positive effect on the peformance of cutting fluids.