Gas Station Time Warp in Orfordville

When I am on a road trip I consider it appropriate to be lost a certain percentage of the time.  Maybe 5% if my wife is along.  But when I am by myself - and with a looser definition of lost - more than that is fine.  Of course when meandering down obscure back roads you must keep an eye on the gas gauge and on a recent southern Wisconsin jaunt I was watching the needle drop as I traveled over some very rustic territory.

So I pulled into a little town I might othewise have skipped, Orfordville Wisconsin.

On Main street there was a dingy looking 1970's gas station that appeared to be closed.  But across the street?  This:

Whoa.  My first thought was that the place on their sign where it said "Established 1964" was totally wrong.  This was a vintage gas station and a much earlier business.  So I pulled in to check it out.

Out of habit I started pumping gas before....a guy came out to do it!  Guy also gave the windows a good squeegie and was happy to chat about the weather, the gas station, etc. 

As it happens it is a vintage building, dating to 1926.  It was a livery stable before it became a garage.  Most of their business is repair work.  The owners of Sather's are buying the dingy 1970's station across the street so that they will have pumps that can be self serve after hours.  The pumps you see here are pre-credit card.  The weather looks OK but "might rain later".

It's not a total time warp.  Sather's has its own website and Facebook page in which more is explained.....

Weirdly Orfordville had another vintage gas station just a few blocks away.  It seems to be inactive now, its most recent incarnation being some sort of ice cream shop.

The gas pump out front does look original.  I remember seeing a few of these still in operation when I was a very young lad.  The little glass "eye" filled up with gasoline when you ran the pump.  It swirled around when the gas was pumping.  I found them vaguely frightening.

Odd how gas stations and their fixtures age with such grace.

Leaving Orfordville I passed a nice new gas station/convenience store complex on the edge of town.  They seemed to be doing well.  I suspect it is the successor to the down town 70's gas station.  I hope they get along with Sather's and that both the old and new enterprises succeed.