Bates Street & Morgan Ford
South St. Louis, MO
FILE PHOTO This venerable “gasoline service station” opened in 1931, back when 2 gas pumps in front of a tiny garage was all that was needed to handle vehicular volume in this section of Bevo Mill. We are fortunate to have such historical remnants of the city’s past still standing and operating today.
OK, this is actually a lame Photoshop gag.
I took this photo just the other day. With the vintage pickup truck parked in front, the place was an endearing warp in the space/time continuum. This brief, anachronistic moment is Reason #1,238 why I love the City of St. Louis.
Yep, Steve nailed it with HUdson rather than
GUstine–but a good guess. HUdson joins these other venerable South City telephone exchanges:
VErnon 2 (832)
FLanders 1 2 and 3 (351…)
PRospect 1 2 3 6 (771…)
TOwnsend 5 (865)
MElrose 1 8(631…)
PLateau 2 (752)
MOhawk 4 (664)
That should have it pretty well covered!
Toby–that relic of a gas station is worth a drive by! Next time we’re at El Burrito Loco!
^^Ah! That makes sense– thanks for the correction!
Agreed, 100%: This is one of my hands-down favorite buildings in the entire area. Hard to tell in the photo, but it straddles the corner at an angle, and all the original lettering above the service bays have been maintained in tip-top condition. It never fails to make me feel good when I drive by.
PS: I believe that “481-” was known as “HUdson1”. Scroll down this link for more details:
http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/archives/history/exchange.names
How true, how true! There’s just one small giveaway– the phone number. If the photo was really vintage, the number would be GU1-0075 (my guess it’s short for GUstine)…