Thoughts while Driving through Kansas

Posted on May 22, 2008

Speaking about fuel - there is one other significant thing to see in the middle of Kansas - abandoned gas stations. In the 70’s there was a gas station at virtually every exit from I-70. There was rarely anything else not even farm houses. Most of the exits did not seem to lead to any nearby town, if they did the towns were well out of sight.

Today, unless someone has found a new use - like selling “Adult” items or storing construction and maintenance equipment for the oil wells - they sit empty. BP and Stuckey’s seem to be the latest to toss in the towel, at least those were the ones that still had signs. They are probably the casualties of the change from gas guzzlers to gas sippers.

Leaving Topeka I was reminded of another drive down I-70 during another “energy crisis” summer of ‘73 I think. While people were standing in line some places to buy gas, we took a road trip to the annual National Council of Corvette Clubs convention in Indy. We went in a caravan across I-80 to get there - not sure why. Had no trouble getting gas going there. Maybe that was because one of the ‘vettes had a need to stop for oil every 100 miles so we just topped off. My ‘63 ‘vette had broken a few weeks before so we made the trip in an AMC Hornet wagon. The group included at least 4 Corvettes plus one on a trailer. the truck pulling the trailer was filled with about 50 cases of “bootleg” Coors. Coors was not sold east of the Mississippi - this predated the Smokey and the Bandit movie by several years. The proceeds for selling the beer paid for the whole trip for those of us who chipped in to buy it (at someone’s employee discount price as I recall).

Anyway, we did not all return together - different work schedules. I decided to go the I-70 route and stop at a friend’s in Topeka. Got there early Sunday with an empty gas tank and no open gas stations to be found. My friend made several calls looking for any open station selling gas in the city - found none. When we were ready to leave that night my friend pulled out a 5 gallon jerry can he had stashed and added it to our tank. That hornet got about 18 mpg (it had the V8) so we knew the 5 gallons would not really get us far.

We headed West, looking for gas at every little crossroads. When we were about on fumes I made the decision to go to the next station we found that looked like it might have gas when it opened Monday morning and park at the pump and sleep in the car.

Just after making that decision we came upon a lighted sign that said GAS. Pulling in we asked how much we could buy (many stations were limiting to 10 gallons) - he said fill it up!

It held 18 gallons I think, got us to Limon, CO where they sold us 10 gallons and we made it home in time for me to go to work Monday morning. I’m pretty sure that station is no longer open, though the building may still stand.

Amazing to think now, that “crisis” ’causes so many problems - one of the greatest was all the gas pumps that could not be set for gas prices over 50 cents per gallon. Some stations had to adjust their pricing to the half gallon while others simple put signs up telling customers the price was double the amount shown on the pump.

Just this week I heard the current “crisis” is causing some stations with older pumps problems because again, they were not designed to register prices this high. The more things change - the more they seem the same.

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