Fill ‘ er Up, Please! Take a pit stop across America with Wright Museum’s exhibit

A new display at the museum on Center Street recreates a WWII-era filling station that illustrates how such businesses fueled both work and play on the home front.

Marking the official opening of the installation, the museum hosted Tuesday, July 6, a program in which wartime gas stations and their place in the broader context of American history were explored.

During WWII, American auto manufacturers were fully committed to war production and new cars were not being made for the civilian market, curators said. Motorists, therefore, needed to do all they could to keep their pre-war jalopies roadworthy. As a result, WWII-era filling stations took on a vitally patriotic role by keeping older model cars in good repair.

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without was the mantra of the day,” said Wright Museum Director Mark Foynes, who co-presented the program with John Warner, owner of the Melvin Garage of Melvin Village. “Folks made do with what they had so the nation’s industry could fulfill America’s role as the ‘Arsenal of Democracy’,” said Warner, who also is a member of the museum’s board of directors.

With the rise of the automobile decades earlier, America’s roadside architecture changed to reflect its people’s increased mobility. Filling stations helped define the streetscapes of the mid-20th century.

The addition of the new exhibit “enhances the Wright Museum’s ability to evoke the broad totality of American culture during the WWII years,” Foynes said.

“Building a 1940s gas station was part of (late museum founder) David Wright’s original vision for the Home Front Room,” said the exhibit’s sponsor, Richie Clyne. “He and I used to talk about what it would look like and how much visitors would enjoy the display,” Clyne said. “That was just a little while before he died. ...I’m proud to have had the chance to be part of fulfilling that original vision.”

In addition to the lecture and the exhibit opening, Warner displayed several items of vintage petrolina and other gas station collectibles on the evening of the lecture.