Olden Days: Gasoline Alley

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When I met Dale Mohler several years ago at the Panda Garden Restaurant I told him our boys still like to talk about the fun they had as kids buying penny candy from him down at the famous “Gasoline Alley,” just a couple blocks east of grandma’s house at 611 N. Third Ave. E. All the kids in the neighborhood loved to go there with coins jingling in their pockets. Dale and his partner Lloyd Strong leased the business shortly after World War II. While the official name was Square Deal Oil, it was always known as “Gasoline Alley,” even back in the late ’30’s when the boys’ mother was a little girl. She also used to walk the same couple blocks with her brother Harry, each with a big penny for a special treat. Those were the days when you could get a pretty good-sized Baby Ruth or Butterfinger candy bar, a package of eight wrapped Walnettos, a big stack of bubble gum or other goodies for just one single penny. This, of course, was not a daily occurrence in the “Olden Days.” Tom, Dave and Mike all remember Grandma giving them a couple coins, and they would hurry off to look at the whole array of little candies still available. The sizes for a penny had shrunk over the years, but they would still proudly walk into grandma’s kitchen to show her just how much they acquired for 10 or 15 cents. To them, this was a big expense. Dave Mohler told me this building was previously a house that faced north. But the original owners jacked it up, turned it around, added a couple gas pumps and were in business. Dale and his partner soon added what was an early day convenience store in the back room, where you could go for a quick loaf of bread, or some other necessity. They provided a good service, since the other small neighborhood grocery stores had mostly disappeared, thanks to the big super markets. The times they were a changing! When Mary’s dad bought his first car, a 1933 Chevrolet back in 1945, you could fill it with petrol at 19 cents a gallon down at Gasoline Alley. I well remember paying only 29 cents for a number of years in the 1950s when we lived just five blocks east. Our boys also liked to go for gas or a loaf of bread with dad, and of course head for that penny candy. Speaking of candy, Dale told me they used to buy about a half-ton of bulk Christmas Candy every year. Right after Thanksgiving, they gave a ticket with every dollar’s worth of gas and three tickets would get you a half pound of candy. It brought them lots of traffic. Now, for an interesting sidelight. Gasoline Alley was part of a small group of Square Deal Gasoline stations — two in Boone, two in Ames and one in Newton. Kerwin Fish, a salesman for North Star Oil in Minneapolis and Don Lamberti, who ran a station in Des Moines, bought the business from the three original owners. They started adding more outlets, and eventually came up with the name Casey’s General Store. Today, Casey’s operates more than 1,600 company-owned general stores in nine midwestern states. No doubt the catalyst for the variety of convenience-service stations of today were people just like Dale Mohler and Lloyd Strong. They saw a need, and did something about it. Dale said it was not unusual to put in 75 to 80 hours a week in his earlier days building the business. It was back in 1979 when Dale closed shop. But our family still thinks of him as that likable “penny candy man” when we see him around town. So do lots of others.

Olden Days appears each Wednesday in the Newton Daily News. Contact John McNeer at mcneer@pcpartner.net