Posted on 12/29/2014 12:27:23 PM PST by nikos1121
I can recall growing up in Chicago in the 1950s. "Oklahoma" gas stations were the most visible. I seem to recall 19 cents a gallon. The lowest price as a driver was around 29 cents. Seemed like it always was about the same as a pack of cigarettes or gallon of milk.
Don’t recall the price, but I remember watching the little spinning thing in the glass pass-through as the gas moved through the pump. (From the back seat of my fathers station wagon.)
From the “inflation calculator”...
What cost $.25 in 1950 would cost $2.39 in 2013.
Also, if you were to buy exactly the same products in 2013 and 1950,
they would cost you $.25 and $0.03 respectively.
Used to love those goofy Gulf commercials
Me too! Remember the one with the guy and his girlfriend I think it was in a VW and they were getting full service? They scrounged and found another quarter for gas and the attendant say “very good, sir!”
Don’t recall the price, but I remember watching the little spinning thing in the glass pass-through as the gas moved through the pump. (From the back seat of my fathers station wagon.)
96 cents in the late 80s. $1.29 or so when I started driving 10 years later.
65 cents a gallon when I filled up my first tank in my first car. 1975 Texaco station.
I remember a a pre-driving kid thinking it was an outrage when it shot up to 47 cents. I think I remember high 20s, maybe 28 or 29.
38.9, early 70s (CT) non-driver
59.9, late 80s (CT) driver
85.9, early 2000s (OH, told wife that was the last time we’d see that price)
When I was in High school I lived in my own apartment, and had to work at filling stations to pay rent and eat.
It was just as you say, we checked everything, cleaned the windshield, we would air your tires and top off the battery and radiator for free, and you got drinking glasses and stamps with minimum gallons bought, we were courteous, and kept a rag in our pocket to wipe you headlights, or the dipstick, and we knew how to give you directions.
It was pleasant work, and people were nice and would engage you and be appreciative, we were a more homogeneous, connected community of fellow Americans back then.
About .50¢, 1974.
Of course...you would be paying for that with two *silver* dimes....worth 2.28 today (even with the whackage that has occurred to silver of late) so arguably, gas is cheaper than it was then if you're paying < $2.28. I'm not, I live in CA and gas is automatically 50 cents higher than the rest of the US and after Jan 01, going to get more expensive with our wonderful new "cap ' n trade" tax.
Nineteen cents, but that was before I could drive.
$0.35 a gallon as a kid in the late 60’s.
I can remember getting a two gallon gas can with a dollar taped to it when I was 14. That would have bee $0.50.
I cannot remember what I paid yesterday.
$0.279 in Long Beach, CA - 1969
$0.549 when is started driving.
I believe it was 63 cents a gallon, when I first started driving, circa 1976...
I remember $0.99 back in the late 90’s in DuPage County Illinois.
During the gas crisis in the early 70’s, my dad was concerned with the rising prices and said, “if it ever gets over 30¢ a gallon, we will just have to stop driving.”
Of course it did, but we didn’t stop driving.
By the time I got a license, a gallon of gas or a pack of cigarettes were getting closer to the half dollar mark, and you still found the odd silver quarter or dime in change...but they weren't being made of silver any more.
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