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This great old post card that just recently came into our collection shows the Texaco Lighthouse Gas Station at the intersections of U.S. 51 and Illinois 47 in Decatur, Illinois. It was one of the early full-service rest stops for travelers and was an early user of modern air conditioning. Although it may not be a real lighthouse, structures like this, show ingenuity that businesses used to promote their locations with the popularity of lighthouses. This structure did not have a spiral staircase on the inside. Rather, it had a ladder that went straight up the outside of the tower that was used to climb and change the light when it went out. On the back of the post card that was postmarked on July 15, 1939, a person wrote, “Having a swell time. (Almost) wish you were here, Love and kisses, Bill.”
Obviously, with the use of a lighthouse and the ship’s anchor that is shown on the side of the building, the Texaco Lighthouse Restaurant had a very nautical theme. One of the signs that is legible on top of the building indicates that they sold Roszell’s Ice Cream, a very successful and a popular dairy company out of Peoria, Illinois that eventually became part of Sealtest Dairy, a division of National Dairy Products, the predecessor to Kraft Foods. Interestingly, Texaco and Roszell’s Ice Cream have all disappeared from the America scene, as has this gas station. We have lost and given up so much in this nation in the name of progress and to foreign ownership.
This story appeared in the
Mar/Apr 2014 edition of Lighthouse Digest Magazine. The print edition contains more stories than our internet edition, and each story generally contains more photographs - often many more - in the print edition. For subscription information about the print edition, click here.
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