DOTSONVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Driving past the building, you might think you were seeing things. A Texaco Station visible from the road, straight out of a 1950s road trip, in the middle of someone’s backyard. But just ask Rob Anderson, who’s spent 20 years putting it together, and he’ll tell you it’s no hallucination.
From the outside, the building looks just like a gas pump dotted with signage. You can even step on a hose and ring the old-fashioned service bell. But the inside is filled with an eclectic mix of Texaco memorabilia and the trappings of an old country store.
Video by Wesley Irvin
Part store, part collection, part garage and part playhouse from when Anderson’s grandchildren were younger, the station is filled with items and stories to go with them.
Raised on a farm, Anderson learned a lot of practical skills from his father. “If it wouldn’t be for him teaching us how to weld and to paint, and to put things together and to take things apart and take care of things, I probably wouldn’t have this,” said Anderson. “Because most of the stuff I got when I brought it in here was real old and ugly looking.”
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Something to fill time
Many of the antique items Anderson got were not in collecting condition, but restoring them provided an outlet. “There was a time when I was doing all this, my wife was working a night shift, and I was working a day shift. So, I’d come home, kiss her goodbye, she’d go to work, and I’m sitting here,” said Anderson.
Instead of waiting idly for his wife’s shift to end, Anderson stayed busy, saying “As I’m sitting here till midnight waiting for her to come back home, I’d be out here sandblasting stuff or prepping things to paint.”
While Anderson is no longer adding to the collection, when he was, he’d find items in a variety of places. People often brought items to add to the station for display, like road signs or period cans. “And I’m sure they were happy to probably get rid of some of this stuff, and I was happy to get it,” said Anderson.
Other items took a little more initiative. Several times, Anderson came across gas stations where distributors had bought new gas pumps and equipment and the old ones had been wheeled behind the station, sometimes even pushed down embankments. He learned how to simply ask managers up front if he could have them.
How it started
But much like the skills it took to build the station, Anderson’s father was also partly responsible for its origin. While in the military, Anderson made a hobby out of buying broken-down muscle cars, fixing them up, riding them for a bit and reselling them to do it over again.
After returning from a deployment in Germany, Anderson visited his father at his farm. His father threw an old oil tank on his trailer, along with some furniture. “He said, ‘Here, this goes with them old cars you play with; take this with you,’” said Anderson.
At the time, it was rusted, and Anderson didn’t think he needed it. He took it to avoid hurting his father’s feelings, but quickly found himself enjoying getting new pieces. He jokingly blames his dad for the collection, but he’s glad he introduced him to it, saying “Now when I think back on it, I should’ve been collecting this stuff in the late ’70s, early ’80s, when I started working on them old hot rods.”
As for why Texaco, Anderson used to fill in at a Texaco occasionally in his native Pennsylvania growing up, which he loved doing. He says that’s likely what influenced him to go with a Texaco theming later in life.
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