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Station has been refurbished with weeks of hard
work & a fresh coat of paint. It looks just
like it did in the 1920's & 1930's when it sat
where Howard Street met Chicago St., "Pontiac's
Main Street". Few have seen the tiny steel building
since it was removed by a team of horses &
skids during the Winter snow storm in 1937. Pontiac
Rustic Auto Club decided to restore the station as
a permanent fixture at Threshermen's Park. It is
receiving much attention. This move is a big change
for the Old Station. For 57 years, it made its home
South of town at the Brock Farm. For several years,
Ada Brock & her late husband used the weathered
building as a brooder house for chickens. Mrs.
Brock said some people considered it a landmark on
Old Route 66. When they saw it they knew they were
close to the County Nursing Home.
In April 1994 the Auto Club crane-hoisted the
station off it's foundation by the tin roof, loaded
it onto a flat-bed trailer & transported it to
the Threshermen's Park & anchored the side
walls to concrete. "You'd think it would fall into
a million pieces, but it didn't." As the station
was brought back to life with "Conoco Green" colors
and the shiny silver roof, memories came alive in
the minds of those who grew up in the neighborhood
where the station was once the gathering spot for
light conversation, practical jokes, paperboys, and
snowball fights.
Allen Johnson, now in his 80's, of Rural Pontiac
was the last to run the station. Johnson recalls a
long list of honest, hard working customers who
charged a week's worth of gas when fuel was 13
cents a gallon & the old pumps had a $10.00
capacity. Every body had charge accounts back then.
It was a busy place come pay day he said. When most
folks think of the Old Station; the friendly,
smiling face of the late Arleigh Jones comes to
mind. Jones ran the station prior to Johnson and
then took over Conoco's bulk wagon business. The
station was built by Robert Kay and was one of the
earliest pre-fab gas stations in the mid to late
1920's, according to John Darqan of Pontiac.
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