This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

Then & Now: Hap's Service Station

The Island's first gas station was both a sign and a casualty of progress.

The huge gas storage tanks rose about 100 feet off the ground, and the hand pump that released the fuel flowing into customers' cars was so high up you could barely reach it. At least that's how Hap's Service Station used to look to Ed Lightfoot, who began pumping gas at his father's roadside pit stop when he was 8 years old.

Ewart “Hap” Lightfoot was born in a mud hut in Wyoming and tossed around the Northwest during his teens, eventually settling on Mercer Island. He ran an engraving service in Seattle and an auto freight business before he saw an opportunity in the Island's increasing car traffic, and opened the first local gas station in 1918.

Located at 76th Avenue and S.E. 24th Street, Hap's not only fueled and fixed cars, but as one of the only spots on the Island with a telephone, it was a community hub as well.

Find out what's happening in Mercer Islandwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The original wood structure was destroyed in a fire in the early 1920s. When it was rebuilt, Ed says, his father made sure to construct it out of bricks.

They sold sticks of chewing gum and a small selection of candy out of glass containers on the counter. Ed's favorite were Baker's Chocolate Squares, which he got to eat when there were broken ones. It was his job to unload the candy boxes from the delivery truck. Curiously, it was usually the ones containing the chocolate squares that happened to get dropped on their way in.

Find out what's happening in Mercer Islandwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

During World War II, it was all about rationing. Drivers had to present a card labeled with an “A,” “B” or “C” which indicated how much gas they could get. Next to the station was a dry storage shed, where Ed and his brothers would store newspapers and scrap metal that would be sent off to be repurposed for the war effort. They even scoured the side of the road looking for tossed out cigarette boxes, which they would pick apart to salvage the tiny pieces of foil in the wrapping.

Wartime telegrams would also reach Islanders via Hap, who had the unenviable task of delivering messages beginning with the phrase “We regret to inform you...”

Hap ran the station until the late 1940s, eventually leasing it to Standard Oil. With traffic as well as the size of cars growing, the station was renovated to be moved farther back from the street so that cars could pull safely off the road to get their gas.

 It survived the construction of the first Floating Bridge (championed by Ed's uncle, George Lightfoot), tucked away underneath a highway overpass. But transportation development would ultimately mean the demise of the Island's first gas station—in its place now are the Eastbound lanes of I-90.

 

 

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Mercer Island