automobiles

Where Do You Think Early Cars Got Gas?

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Surprisingly, if you said a pharmacy, you’d be right. Before gas stations, pharmacies sold gasoline.

It seems car inventors didn’t give much thought to where a person with a new auto would buy the very thing it took to make it run. He kinda put the cart before the horse so it seems the neighborhood pharmacy stepped in and sold fuel in addition to medicines, made soda pop, cut hair in some towns without a barbershop, performed surgeries, and pulled teeth.

The gasoline they sold was not pumped or put directly into a vehicle. The car owners brought cans into the pharmacies to be filled and they in turn, put it into their auto.

While there’s some disagreement about where the first drive-up service stations were, most think it was in downtown Pittsburg and the company was Gulf Refining in 1913. The cost was 27 cents per gallon. With the U.S. inflation rate, that would’ve been $8.60 in today’s prices.

Pretty crazy, huh?

I admit I never really gave it much thought but if I had, I would not have said a pharmacy. But, if you’d considered that pharmacies also sold kerosene for lamps, it would make sense. I have no idea how it was kept but seeing how strong gasoline and kerosene smelled, I only hope they kept it far away from the medicines they prepared or any surgeries they performed. Good heavens. I just can’t imagine. I wish I had a photo of this.

I love these little tidbits like this that I find on HistoryFacts.com. Some of this stuff is so amazing.

Today, it’s much the same. Electric cars came way before the charging stations. Thank goodness they’re not in pharmacies though! My car is one of the regular kind that takes gas but my niece and her husband have an electric car. They get stranded sometimes when their battery goes dead and forces them to to sit for two hours while the battery recharges. Not for me!

What is your opinion of electric cars? Do you want one? Or what do you think about buying fuel from a pharmacy? I’m giving away a copy (paperback or ebook) of LOVE’S FIRST LIGHT to one commenter.

This book came out in July and readers seem to like it. At least, we don’t have to go to a pharmacy to buy it! 

Here’s the blurb:

After suffering a devastating accident, Rachel Malloy wakens with a stranger. He bears no resemblance to her perception of God, nor does he have a halo so she must not be dead. Regardless, after taking her entire family and leaving her, she and God are not exactly on speaking terms.

Rancher Heath Lassiter has prayed fervently and long for a wife. Is she the one? The appearance of a rare white dove shortly afterward seems to be a sign.

Despite Heath’s unwavering faith and kindness, Rachel refuses to marry him. Dark secrets haunt, secrets that blacken her name, making marriage to anyone impossible. Though disappointed, Heath rebuilds her burned-out house. There, her world again shifts with the discovery of a newborn near her family’s graves and a white dove perching nearby.
Love grows as Heath becomes a constant in her life. Yet Rachel lives in fear of losing this baby. When the infant becomes very ill, she desperately promises God she’ll return to her forsaken faith if He’ll heal the child. But first light brings uncertainty. Will the dove return as a symbol of divine mercy, or will Rachel’s fragile faith be shattered once more?

This book is on sale for $3.99 and it’s also on Kindle Unlimited for free if you have a membership. CLICK HERE to buy.
I also have another book, WINNING MAURA’S HEART, on sale for $1.99 until the end of the month. This is a sweet romance about a woman who’s father is a hangman. The town shuns Maura and her sister and banishes them from their midst. They take the town’s orphans and go to an abandoned Spanish mission. CLICK HERE for more.

Automobiles in the West

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I have a cover reveal for my next release in June, and I wanted to share some fun research I found while writing it. So far, this has been a fun and interesting series!

When I think of the west, especially when I think of cowboys, I don’t think of automobiles. In fact…I had to check to see if there were even gas stations or places to buy fuel in the Black hills in 1906. Luckily, there were. But in rural South Dakota, especially in the Black Hill where it feels (because it is) remote, automobiles weren’t as popular as they were in other parts of the country.

In To a Brighter Tomorrow, I introduce the Johlman and Douglas families. Two groups fighting for one verdant valley. Both thinking the other will waste or ruin the resource. We also have some bad guys, because what’s a western without a few vagabonds?

A judge, his hired Pinkerton, and the judge’s daughter are headed to Belle Fourche in the early part of winter, so they will arrive by car, rented of course. I hunted for a car that would give them privacy to speak and I found this.

It was call the landaulette which was a style of vehicle with the driver separate from the passengers, allowing for private conversation. I’m sure the driver was quite cold though, and doubt the passengers were much warmer, since there was no heat in these early cars other than that which naturally came off the engine.

This is an image of the steering, which was quite basic, but kind of elegant in it’s own way. I like the fact that it looks a little like a stage coach. Many taxis of that time (in larger cities) were Rolls Royce landaulettes. How else would a wealthy judge and his only daughter arrive in town?

If you lived in the west in the early 1900s, would you trust a car or stick with horse and wagon?

Without further ado, here is book 2 in the Belle Fourche Chronicles! Valley of Promise

Armstrong has never had a choice in his life.

Pa has made every decision, from who his friends are to when he will take over their huge cattle spread. He’s made plenty of enemies in Belle Fourche, SD along the way. Especially their neighbors, the sheep ranching Johlmans.

When a judge arrives in town to look into all the misdeeds of both families, Armstrong’s carefully planned world begins to crumble, particularly when he meets the judge’s daughter. A woman who could have his heart, unless her father finds out what his family has been doing.

Dosha Cattrel’s father has threatened every man who’s shown interest. She’s given up hope of ever finding someone perfect enough to suit him, much less love her.

Her father brings her and a secretive Pinkerton agent to investigate a land war. She fully expects to be bored silly until she meets Armstrong, one of the very men under her father’s spyglass. What Armstrong doesn’t know is that she is related to the Johlmans, his fiercest enemy.

Can a forbidden love survive the light of day, or will secrets kill the growing love between them?

Preorder this sweet, forbidden romance now!