The Wild Way Early Drivers Filled Up Their Cars Before Gas Stations Existed

In the not-so-distant past, cars weren’t as commonplace as they are today. Naturally, this also means that the now-essential elements of widespread car travel, like highways and mechanics, weren’t around yet. The gas station, which is a building on just about every corner in the modern era, was no exception. Way back in the late 1800s, early drivers had to pay a visit to their local pharmacy to purchase cans of fuel. One had to pour the fuel from the cans into their vehicle to get it running.

The most famous instance of filling up a vehicle using pharmacy supplies was in 1888, when Bertha Benz, the wife of automobile pioneer Carl Benz, drove from Mannheim to Pforzheim, Germany, in the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, the first car ever invented. Early on in her trip, she made her first benzene refueling stop at the Stadt-Apotheke pharmacy in Wiesloch, giving it the historical distinction of being the world’s first filling station. So began the trend of pharmacies providing drivers with their much-needed vehicle fuel.

Of course, in the over a century since Bertha’s historic trip, car refueling has changed. In fact, it didn’t take long after her landmark drive for the first thing we recognize as a gas station to be established, making pharmacy refueling nothing more than a historical footnote.

In the years following Bertha Benz’s drive, cars became more and more popular. Thus, a better way to fuel up was needed, and in the United States, the answer came in the year 1905. That year saw the establishment of the world’s first designated filling station, which opened for business in St. Louis, Missouri, and allowed folks to drive up and purchase fuel without having to get it by the canister. At the same time, it has also been claimed by Standard Oil that the real first gas station was opened two years later in 1907. This station pumped gasoline directly into cars from a massive tank.

These systems worked well enough, but there was still some evolution to be done to get use to the gas stations we know today. Less than a decade later, in 1913, Gulf Refining Company opened the doors to its first drive-up gas station. Located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on the corner of Baum Boulevard and St. Clair Street, this station also offered free air, water, crankcase service, and tire and tube installation. This extensive service is just one of the many reasons why the gas stations of yesteryear are considered better than those in operation today.

Over the past century-plus, gas stations have come a long way. Even with their flaws, and the comparatively high price of modern gas, the current setup is certainly a far and away improvement on the old pharmacies that early drivers had to work with.