Omaha daily bee., 1916-09-16
OMAHA LEADS IN
| FILLING STATIONS
|Prettiest in the Entire Country
Are Located On the Main
Thoroughfares.
bur FOUR YEARS OLD NOW
By A. R. GRoH.

"Filling-station." Al
Five years ago the word hadn't en-
kered the language. Now everybody
knows that a filling station is a place
|wherc automobiles get their gaso-
Zinc.
There are fifteen of them in Oma-
t,a, all built within the last four years.
They are the prettiest filling sta
lions in the whole country They
have been written about and pictured
"a national landscape and architec-
tural journals.
"The east has nothing to compare
with them," said =. v. Nicholas. IL
was in Washington, d. G., recently,
hnd there | found not one filling sta
tion that could equal even the poorest
Df ours.
Best Found Anywhere.
sThe same is true in the far west.
In California the stations are only
cheap affairs, built Of tin and galvan-
zed iron. We have 500 worth Of
landscape gardening on our grounds
1t Thirty-eighth and Farnam.'
Mr.. Nicholas was the first man to
build filling station in Omaha. That
was when he came here from Min
neapolis four years ago. He first in
stalled pump at the north end OF
the Twenty-fourth street viaduct,
where passing autoists were given an
opportunity to get gas" direct from
The company's tanks.
The success Of the idea was i'm
mediate. Thereupon Mr.. Nicholas in-
stalled the first regular filing station
u Seventeenth and Jackson streets. =
Machines Line Up.
A "landslide" OF ratlonage came
Upon the lone station. Often the ma
chimes were lined up from Seven
eenth to Sixteenth and up Sixteenth
street. nearly ID Howard street.
News of the new idea in gasoline
distributing soon spread among the
pther companies, and since that time
he stations have multiplied until now
hey number fifteen.
The astonishing thing about the
Filing station is that somebody didn't
think Of It sooner"
Il just shows how the human mind
runs in rut. Ii is hard to do new
hings differently, than we did before.
Anew years ago the latest and most
ip-to-date thing to do was to have
big gasoline storage tank installed
underground at your home. This was
Expensive and unsatisfactory.
The riit-running r.nd Of man rea-
bone thus: we have coal brought
o the house to burn in the furnace.
Therefore we should have gasoline
brought 70 the house to burn in the
hutomobilc."
Flaw in Reasoning.
The flaw in this reaso. IL was that
automobiles have wheels and move
bout, while furnaces hive no wheels
md are stationary.
And though the automobiles ran
bast the biz gasoline rtoragc tanks Of
he different companies every day. il
vas several years before the bright
dca dawncd on some one that they
Fould take on their gas" at some
central station on = main thorough
fare.
Today the motorist drives UP into
prltty little park and sits at ease III
bis car while the gsntlemanly station
ban pumps the required amount Of
gasoline into the tank. Ii the motor.
y 4 suspicious, he can count the gal
ions Of gas" a. they 90 III.
The gcntIemanly station man will
lso have q look at the radiator to
PIE that i isn't in danger Of heat
prostrations He will supply distilled
Fater for the storage batteries And
here Is A. supply OF free air II the
(ixes are feeling a BIZ wobblv.