As a kid in the 1950–60s, cars were a really big topic with my brothers and our friends and as you can imagine, engines, compression ratios, horsepower, differential gear ratios, and how fast off the line a car was, saturated a lot of our time. Every year as we neared May 30th, a lot of our conversations included the famous “Indy 500 Motor Racing Spectacle.” I can recall a number of bets being wagered between friends as to who would win the big race.  A.J. Foyt, Tony Bentenhousen, Sam Hanks, Mario Andretti, or any other driver. I remember the to-do over the turbine engine car that was tried out. But one thing we didn’t even think about was an electric-powered car. We would chuckle and joke about Maxwells or Franklins or any old-time car that we thought might be such a car. 

My recollection of those days and the arguments on power of gasoline engines we had made me compare those days to the current turmoil running through the automobile business today. Let’s face it, electric cars have an advantage over gasoline-powered cars for a number of reasons: much fewer moving parts, much faster response to increase speed and the ability to reach higher speeds quicker. They have several drawbacks as well—they are heavier, and driving range on a given charge tends to be less that range on a fill-up of gas. All of these factors are in a state of flux and time will tell how it will settle. The EV seems to be the next step in the evolution of the personal and commercial vehicle. Did you know that the first electric vehicle was built in France in 1881 and the same inventor made a small motor he took to power his boat—the first outboard motor—on the Seine River that same year? 

We who have grown up on gasoline power are generally satisfied with what we have. The price of an EV is almost affordable only because of the large subsidies provided by the government. Current battery technology is also evolving and any meaningful improvement for these cars seems be five years away.  

I thought about what would happen to the Indy 500 Race if a fully electric powered car was allowed to enter that race. The command “Gentlemen, start your engines” might not mean anything to the EV driver. Then, when the start flag is waved, the EV’s quickness could be insignificant if it wasn’t in the first row of vehicles. If the EV qualified as a first-row car, its quickness to 220 mph could clearly give it an advantage over gasoline powered cars. I’m sure there are other factors to consider to make EVs and piston engine cars reasonably close in performance so the driver’s ability and the skills of the support teams of a competitor would still be a factor in who wins the race. 

What is the future of the automobile as an element of our society? I remember how the gas station was a major figure in our everyday lives back then. How will charge stations develop? All the talk and push to have all gas guzzling vehicles condemned and sent to the automobile graveyard by 2030 for the sake of the planet got me thinking of how gasoline has changed from being a welcome utility to the scourge of the planet. I took a nostalgic look back to the days of my youth and what I remember about the gas station in my life.

I was about six or seven years old when I first heard the phrase “Fill-er up, and get the windows.” It had to do with the instruction my dad and other motorists often gave to the gasoline service station guy (attendant). There were numerous variations of that request as time passed. You had to go into the little building to pay for your gas and maybe receive an eight-ounce drinking glass if you did “fill up.” Now we are the attendant, wash our own windshield, and never get a tumbler. If we don’t pay at the pump with some kind of card, we go into a building stocked like a Kroger store to grab a snack or buy a lottery ticket. 

The smell of gasoline at stations as the man pumped your gas was the same intoxicating smell that I later smelled at automobile dealership’s service departments. Today we are governed and required to operate only cars that meet the EPA “Café Standards” for fuel economy. This is to save the planet from fossil fuel pollution. Fuel economy concerns have been around since automobiles sped into the world. EPA aside, part of the chat that many drivers had when I was growing up was to brag on how well our cars performed, including engine statistics such as maximum horsepower or how quickly we could go from zero to sixty miles per hour. The term “gear-head” comes to mind.

Another phrase heard back then was: “Give me two dollars’ worth and don’t forget the windows.”   Gas sold for twenty cents per gallon, or less when I was a kid. $2.00 could buy around 9–10 gallons.  Average miles per gallon was well into the 20s so you could figure you could go about 180–200 miles before you had to get more gas. Gasoline stations were like freckles: they were everywhere. Where I lived in Peoria, there were five stations in four blocks, three on one intersection. In Peoria it seemed there was a station on every corner of every major street. With ten or more major streets in Peoria finding a place to “gas up” wasn’t much of a challenge, but you had to find your favorite brand.

I wondered how many gas stations there were in Chillicothe in the late 1940s and 1950s. I checked the 1950 US Census population numbers for Chillicothe and found that including the VNC there were 3,251 people living here and that there were 105,087 similar people in Peoria. I was also able to identify a total of eleven gas stations in Chillicothe. That would be one station for every 295 people. At that ratio, if held true to Peoria, it would mean there were 356 gas stations in Peoria. I can’t verify that as a true number of stations, but it sure seemed like that many to me. I continued my research and learned that since about 1910 until now, there have been twenty-two gas stations in our town, most along 2nd Street when it was the original Route 29 and now 4th Street. 

If we go to EVs at Indy, we will no longer hear the roar of thirty-three engines or the whine of their turbos as they speed to the finish line. 

Sources available upon request