Longtime roadie has a petroliana collection

Johnnie Meier, a longtime champion of Route 66 and other historic roads, has created a roadside tribute to old-time gas stations in Embudo, N.M., on Highway 68 north of Santa Fe.

From the Albuquerque Journal (via the Las Cruces Sun-News):

… [T]hree 1940s-era gas pumps stand as sentinels at a filling station.On the porch is a red 1960s Coca-Cola chest cooler, a 1950s metal sign proclaiming “We Give S&H Green Stamps” and a life-size cigar store Indian that stares back at the pumps.

You won’t see cars pulling up here to refuel, but there are vehicles: a 1954 Packard Patrician, a 1957 Studebaker station wagon, a 1948 Studebaker pickup truck, a 1934 Chrysler sedan and a 1929 Chevy sedan.

Those relics would be more at home in a museum than in a gas station, and that’s exactly where they are. Classical Gas is a museum dedicated to the great American filling station, a place where kitsch and “petroliana” collide.

The story goes on to say that Meier’s Classical Gas Museum doesn’t have an admission charge. But it makes money providing props to movie sets.

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