Old Gas Stations...........Remember?

[frawin]

Alice you are right, Fern was quite a lady, she was really a pretty lady and so much personality.

[frawin]

I woke up in the night thinking about all of the gas stations that Howard has had over the years, I came up with 10 stations. Kind of amazing, when you realize that now there are only 2. There were 4 Grocery Stores when I was a kid and now there is one. Times have changed, there were 4 implement dealers, 3 automobile dealers, 4 barbers. I think the biggest cause of the decline in rural towns was the decline of the family farms.

[Teresa]

Roma sent this to me so I will get it  up on here.
Moline Gas Station

[W. Gray]

Anyone know what corner that is?

160 is headed to the left.

It could be coming into town from either from the west or the east--but what seems to be a water tower behind the station is throwing my bearings off.

Did they move the water tower at some point, or am I just contused?

[sixdogsmom]

Waldo, I think this is on first street looking east; that is the location of the old water tower, and the brick buildings on the left look correct to me. Somebody else will probably be able to verify this better than me. In 1995 we got a new water tower; I have a photo when Moline was a twin tower city, that is the old one was still up while the new was being constructed.

[Ole Granny]

The building on the left is where the laundromat is now.  Years ago it was the card parlor.  Where the gas station was in the pictures - use to be the American Legion Building before it moved to its present location.  It has a basement where people congregated when there was a tornado warning.  Ping pong table for the kids to keep busy.  It was fun.  Parents visiting, everyone enjoying the time spent waiting the storm out.  One evening, as everyone had filled the building, someone made the statement, that if a tornado did come through being in the basement of the Legion would not be a smart place to be with the water tower right out the back door.  If it came down, everyone would drown.  That was the end of the tornado get-togethers.

[sixdogsmom]

I do believe granny that the lives lost in the 1955 tornado in Udall was due to the water tower falling and filling the school basement shelter. That was the scene of many deaths. I am glad that I was able to 'see' the current day Moline and be able to pick it out in an old photo.  Thanks for your expertise!

[Ole Granny]

My dad worked cleaning up Udall along with many other people.  Some of the stories and the memories of what was left; still to this day is disturbing.  I don't remember about the school and the water tower but that must have been why the topic came up.  It was after the storm in Udall that everyone went to the Legion Hall.  When my folks had the cafe, we would go into the old bank vault during the storms.  It did not have a door that would close but the space was used as an office.  Stories told about the building when it was torn down after the fire, declared how difficult it was to remove the old vault.  Wish I had been there to witness it.  So many memories!

[W. Gray]

It seems to me that after the tornado, the town leaders (what was left of them) devised some type of reverse telephone system that is similar to the reverse 911 today.

This was the late fifties but a switch could be tripped in city hall that rang all the phones in town and kept ringing them.

The Udall tornado is supposed to be the deadliest tornado to ever have hit Kansas.

[Roma Jean Turner]

  I remember the old bank vault.  When I was a child and we would visit Moline, Mom King, my godmother, who had the Corner Cafe at the time, would sometimes be sitting in the vault, peeling potatos.  For some reason I remember that very clearly.  I loved the Corner Cafe, I wish it were still there.