Whiting Bros - Route 66 - Moriarty
by Susan Rissi Tregoning
Title
Whiting Bros - Route 66 - Moriarty
Artist
Susan Rissi Tregoning
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
The Whiting Brothers Service Station along Route 66 in Moriarty, New Mexico.
This is a very rare gem! It is the last active Whiting Brothers station with its original Whiting Brothers signage.
It's absolutely perfect, looking just like it did the day it was built. After seeing the ruins of so Whiting Brothers Stations gas stations along Route 66, I remember squealing in delight, "Oh, it's so beautiful!" I never in my life thought I'd say that about a gas station! LOL
Dating to 1954, this is the Whiting Brothers Station number 72. After being a long-time employee at the station, Sal Lucero purchased it in 1985. It's known by the locals as Sal & Inez's Service Station, although I didn't see a single sign with that name on it. While they no longer sell gas here, they are still in business as a garage.
These Whiting Brothers signs were restored in 2013. However, I read somewhere that there was a delay during restoration because a family of owls took up residence in one of the signs, and they had to wait for them to move on before finishing the work.
The first Whiting Brothers Station was built in Saint John, Arizona, in 1926 after the Whiting Brothers discovered it didn't take much lumber from their father's mill to construct a very profitable gas station.
Soon they were popping up all along Route 66 and other areas of the Southwest. When the brothers decided to expand their empire, they added souvenir shops, cafes, and Whiting Brothers Motor Inns next door to their stations.
They became a staple along Route 66 and one of the many success stories along the Mother Road. At their peak, they owned over 100 filling stations, with at least 40 of those being on Route 66. However, the business began to decline with the fuel shortages in the 1970s, and then the interstate bypassed Route 66. By the 1980s, they began selling off their still viable businesses and the others they abandoned. By the 1990s, all that was left of their empire were the fading yellow and orange signs and crumbling buildings.
Copyright 2022 Susan Rissi Tregoning
Uploaded
January 25th, 2022
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