I have an old picture I like to go back and see again from time to time, picturing the Pea Ridge Day Station in downtown Pea Ridge during the 1930s. The station had been built by Clyde "Pea Ridge" Day, the famous baseball pitcher, in 1930, at the main downtown intersection. We might now say it was located at the intersection of North Curtis Avenue and West Pickens Street. I like to look at the picture again because the sign in front lists the price of gasoline at 11 1/2 cents per gallon.
Of course, that was back in the days before electric gas pumps at the filling stations. The usual gas pumps then were hand pumped. When the operator worked the handle back and forth it pumped the gasoline up into a glass cylinder at the top of the pump. The cylinder was calibrated and marked with lines showing a gallon, two gallons, three gallons, etc. When the right amount had been pumped up into the glass, the gasoline was then drained into the car's tank. This was also before the time of self-service pumps. Today, I can't name even one full-service gas station anywhere. All of the stations I know of, in Pea Ridge or elsewhere, are self-service. Back in the day, that was unheard of. All gas stations back then had attendants, almost always men or boys, who pumped the gas for your tank, checked the air in your tires, checked and topped off your engine oil and your radiator coolant, cleaned your windshield, and charged you less than a quarter per gallon of gas.
During all of my growing up days, from 1940 until the late 1950s, I remember gasoline as sold for between 22 cents and 26 cents per gallon in Pea Ridge. Pea Ridge was considered a border city, since the city fathers had run a narrow strip of city limits all the way to Missouri. So Pea Ridge gas stations could sell gasoline at Missouri prices, which back then were generally lower than the prices in most towns in Arkansas. That strip of the Pea Ridge city limits still runs through our farm north of town as it was set up to do 70 some years ago. Recently, as my daughter was preparing to build a new house on the farm, we had to figure out if her house is in the county or in the city limits. We first supposed that her house would be in the county, but then the county showed us that she would be in the city. So, she is in the city, out in the country. She'll actually have city water, but no other city services.
As time progressed, through the 1960s, gasoline began creeping up in price. Gasoline at 29 cents a gallon became common, and by the time my family and I moved to Alma, Ark., in 1972, gasoline was selling at a whopping 33 and 34 cents a gallon. Suddenly then, as we bought gasoline one day, we paid 70 cents a gallon! We thought, my gracious, the sky is falling!! What can happen next? The next time we went to the station our gasoline was $1 per gallon. Then it went back down to 80 cents for awhile, back to a dollar plus, and we haven't seen gasoline for a $1 or less since then.
In 1972, my wife and I made a trip across the ocean to Israel and several other middle eastern countries. We were sometimes near where the big known oil fields were, where much of the oil was obtained for the American market. At first I supposed that being so close to the sources must mean that gasoline was abundant and cheap for the people there. I soon learned that it was not so. Gasoline in Israel and nearby countries was like $6 and $7 per gallon. I wondered how a person could afford to drive over there? I did discover that for the most part, people drove less and took the train more than we are accustomed to in the U.S.A. Of course, by that time -- 1972 -- most of our remaining U.S.A. railroad lines had given up on their passenger service, and passenger depots all over were being torn down.
Thinking back, I'm not so sure that our years of cheap gasoline were so good after all, in that just about the time our country's railroads were getting established, people began dropping away from railroad travel in favor of automobile travel. Having seen what railroad passenger service could be, through the 1940s and 1950s, and seeing what rail passenger service is in countries like Japan and Germany, I am one who rues the loss of our railway passenger service.
After the 1970s, gas prices in the U.S.A. never rose to the level of Europe or the Middle East, but they did get up to $4 per gallon and more. Of course, whenever the price goes up, people seem to think it is just inevitably go out of sight, and the president and big wigs in the country get the blame. I don't remember ever a time when the president or the other big wigs got any credit when the prices go down. This year, gasoline is down. I noticed yesterday that the Casey's station on North Second Street in Rogers had regular unleaded gasoline for $1.99.
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Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Editorial on 10/07/2015