Towns and Nature: DeSoto, MO: Old Texaco Gas Station

Thursday, August 14, 2025

DeSoto, MO: Old Texaco Gas Station

I was looking for De Soto, WI, but accidently got De Soto, MO. When I saw that the signature photo for the town was an old gas station, I dug deeper.

Street View, Oct 2022

Note that the pump on the right displays "Fire Chief" instead of the Big Red Star.

Craig Dexter, Apr 2025

Vintage Gas Stations posted
I was looking for a photo, unelated to this one, and ran across this image. It's not dated or geo-tagged. I'd have to do a deeper search for the original image folder. Best I can remember, this was in a small town So. of St. Louis, MO. Maybe DeSoto? And possibly 2018? I'm fairly new to the group, sorry if this has been posted before. As memory serves this was in the parking lot of a funeral home, next door.

Arthur Netteler: This is located in DeSoto, Missouri. Next door to the "MAHN Funeral Home". The Mahn Family have owned this Station & Property since the mid 1950's. The Texaco closed I THINK in 1969. This is my Hometown. I actually Lived in the small gray house, with white window trim. you can barely see a block behind the Station for like 3 years in the 1980's.

Michael Marx commented on the above post
My car in front of it. It is indeed in DeSoto., MO. We live just outside of town. It’s owned by Mahn’s Funeral Home next door

I originally noticed this photo because it can evidently pump only 9.99 gallons of gas. Then I noticed the sight glass. The sight glass dates the pump before the 1960s, probably before the 1950s, but this pump was used a long time because 42.9 cents per gallon is quite a bit. I don't remember gas being that high in the 1960s. I do remember that our 1961 Dodge station wagon had a 20-gallon tank. So did the service attendant have to pump gas twice to fill up a tank? Or did the meter wrap around, and he had to remember to add the one for the 10's column?