Webb City residents donate money to preserve gas station

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Last fall, we reported Webb City, Missouri, was applying for a grant to preserve a 1920s gas station that’s just a block off Route 66 in downtown. The city was going to have to come up with its share of the cash.

This week, the Joplin Globe reported that residents contributed all of the money needed — and more. About $25,000 was required, and the townsfolk have raised $32,000 so far. And this month, the city learned it has indeed received a state Historic Preservation Grant.

It once sold Sinclair and Tydol gas, and was built to look like a replica of the post office, complete with columns out front. Those columns have since been replaced by metal poles, but Turner hopes the preservation project will return it to its original look. The windows and door are original, as are the wooden letters on the building’s northwest side. The station has a tiny inside bathroom for patrons and an outside door that led to one used by employees. The panel inside the front door with light switch buttons is original, as are light sockets under the canopy. A transom window above the door is painted shut, but a metal lever that once opened and closed it is still intact.

“We want to keep as much of the original hardware as possible,” Turner said.

The city hasn’t decided what the gas station will become once it’s restored. But an ice-cream shop and an art studio are among the ideas.

Here’s what the gas station looked like about two years ago:

The station sits about a block north of a 1930s Broadway alignment of Route 66.

It will be the second historic gas station restored by Webb City. The Webb City Route 66 Information Center is housed in a vintage gas station renovated in 2010.

(Old image of the gas station courtesy of Ron Hart)

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