A cool find on my N.O. trip

[ListerStormGT]

On my recent trip to New Orleans last week with the family we came across something that I thought was very cool. We had went over to the west bank to ride the ferry back over to the city but while driving around to waste time we came across this old Gulf gas station. Of course me being the Gulf nut that I am and the fact that I haven't even seen a Gulf station since I was a kid this was great and I had never seen one with the older sign like this one had. The station itself couldn't have been more than 20x20 in size but it still had a pump out front and the logo was still intact on the pump. The funny thing is when I took the first picture I didn't even notice the red pony that was sitting there until after we had left and looked at the pics..lol So people can say the highlight of their trip to New Orleans is the French Quarter or Bourbon St. Mine was finding this old Gulf station.

[HomeRacingWorld]

I want the pony tied to the old place :)

It is very cool Lee.

[Wolseley Hornet]

I think that pony has been there so long, you can count all its ribs.

That's a distinctly flat-looking rear tyre.

David.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

That looks like one of the old country gas stations out Hwy 61 toward Kenner and La Place. Hwy 61 has a lot to offer the tourer, and hardly anyone sees it because I-10 cut a such a huge swath through the area. Lee, you had the sense to know how important that was and take a picture. You're one in a thousand who cares.

All over the south, there little forgotten places that are filled with history that I have come upon. I stopped to fix a flat on the pavement of an old gas station that backed up to the elevated Illinois Central RR tracks below the huge Central Station passenger platform (now abandoned), in South Memphis back in the 1980s, and when I had it done, I had to find a place to use the bathroom, and it is a scary part of a scary city. I thought I'd see if I could get into the old bathroom, back where vines had covered the back half of the building. The vines made a good curtain, and I could walk right under to find a spot. As I was turning to leave, I saw a rusted old stamped metal sign still clinging to the rotten old bathroom door at the rear of the building, and wished I had a camera more than I ever have. There, forgotten and covered with overgrowth was a sign that read "colored". South Memphis has been almost 100% black since the 1840s. That offensive sign was on that door in that town when everyone who saw it was black. It was an awful find for someone who lived through the Civil Rights Years as a child, but also a bit comforting to see it in ruins and forgotten. Things have stories.

There are the remains of Spanish forts, civil war skirmishes and battles, fantastic railroad antiquities (too big to rust away), old cotton gins, farm equipment, and at low water, things come to the surface in the Mississippi, Tennessee, Pearl, Tallahatchie and Hatchie Rivers that defy imagination. All kinds of history and amazing stories from the past exist all around us. Right here on my property, 20 feet up the trunks of the biggest trees a metal detector will go off because minnieballs from the Civil War are in the wood, deep down.

[OL Mike]

yep cool find

[sixtiesracer]

There's a mostly intact Texaco Gas Station in Hooksett,N.H..The place is locked up like a vault!With what you can see by looking in the front window,it looks like a time capsule!Everything is just where it was when they locked the doors.

[FootScoot]

We had an old Sunoco station here that looked an awful lot like that Gulf one, brick and all. It too was small compared to most, but did have 2 service bays. Very cool find Lee. Much simpler times back then. :)

[dreinecke]

I'm shocked that someone hasn't already walked with the pump and sign. VERY cool.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

The trouble is, the ones that are still extant are never the ones you want. I would like to find a certain Citi Service (Dino) gas station from Maben Mississippi. The old building was red brick, the roof was green clay tile, and the front room was filled with tiers of penny candy from Tom's, Lance, and several others I can't recall. There were small steps for us little kids so we could climb up to the top row to get the treasures we could buy with out 3 cents saved from drinking water instead of milk at lunch in school.

Well, that and Prejean's Friendship House and Shrimp Shop in Long Beach, Mississippi a few years later in my life, where we could trade odd jobs for boiled shrimp. I must have mowed grass and raked pine needles a hundred times over the years at that place. Pounds and pounds of perfectly boiled shrimp and crabs passed these lips in those days. Yum. Good days. That was before the Civil Rights years, so life there was more like "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" than "Mississippi Burning".

[ListerStormGT]