Gas Station Owners Once Well Known In Newmarket

This is second instalment of my column on the history of gas stations in Canada. First, I examined the arrival of the gas station to Canada back in 1907, and now we turn our focus to the iconic gas stations in the Newmarket area.

If you would like to contribute one of your memories to this list, please comment below.

According to author Ethel Trewhella, it is believed the first horseless carriage arrived in Newmarket in the summer of 1901, when E.S. Cane purchased a ‘pleasure car,’ a Winton single cylinder, from Cleveland, Ohio. Reports indicate that although it possessed a gadget to deaden the sound, it certainly could not be classed as noiseless.

When the roads were good, it could reach a speed of 40 miles an hour and required less than one hour to go north to Lake Simcoe using only slightly more than one gallon of gasoline. He is quoted as stating it “drives very easily, seems under perfect control and is very simple to manage.” W.C. Widdifield and T.H. Brunton were also credited with early purchases of horseless carriages locally.

My grandfather was certainly not an advocate for this newfangled contraption called the automobile, much preferring the horse and carriage. Since the arrival of the car locally, the main transportation arteries have been plagued with traffic, and on Main Street, the curbs became lined with parking meters.

If we examine a photo of the corner of Botsford and Main streets from the early 1920s, we will see the stores surrounded by hitching posts, horses tied to them and the old car on busy days. In the early 1900s, this was to all change and, with it, gas stations began to pop up to service this new craze.

The task of tracking down Newmarket’s first gas station has proven to be a difficult one, indeed. There would appear to be five candidates for the honour. J.E. Nesbitt operated a service station on South Main Street from at least 1926. Fred Thompson operated City Service on Timothy Street in the early 1930s, along with the Keffer station on Water Street, the Geer and Byers station on Botsford across from the Old Town Hall (a former livery stable), and a Shell station on Eagle Street.

The method of distribution consisted of fuel being raised manually from an underground tank to a glass tank located on top of the pump by an attendant who worked a large handle on the pump’s side. One could watch the glass pump fill up, knowing exactly how much you had purchased.

I gave some thought as to the most efficient method to present a listing of those early gas stations, and I have settled on presenting them by location. As I mentioned in last weekend’s column, the early gas stations were generally clustered along the main transportation arteries in the heart of the community.

Keep in mind Newmarket proper initially consisted of the area from Huron Street (Davis Drive) to Mulock and from just east of Prospect Street to Yonge Street. We were surrounded by farms until the new subdivisions began to appear. It is therefore not at all surprising the early gas stations were located along Davis, Eagle, Prospect, Yonge and Main. Very few people remember Main Street had its share of gas stations.

Early gas stations were primarily individually owned and operated. The stations changed hands quite often. Sadly, as with many businesses, the chains such as Esso, Shell, BA and BP would purchase these independents through the years. I can remember my parents and grandparents always referred to the name of a gas station by its owner’s name and not the chain name.

In my listings, I have listed the stations by their area (Davis, Yonge, Main Street, Eagle). As previously stated, you will find the names changing over time but the original locations remaining the same.

Let us begin with the stations along Main. Given Main Street’s propensity for massive fires over the years, having gas storage in the downtown area would seem to have been rather risky.

• J. E. Nesbitt was a car dealer who located next to Riddell’s Bakery.
• Charles McCauley, southeast corner of Davis and Main (became an Esso Station), also known as Bob’s Esso.
• H.T. Sutton, located near Roxy Cinema (became a Shell in the 1930s — also Albert Lawson).
• George Knowles station on east side of Main, just north of Simcoe Street.
• N.J. Sedore, located near Dyers Furniture on the west side.
• Fred Thompson owned a station behind the King George Hotel on Timothy Street where the Gray Coach depot was located.
• Henry Blair owned a station on the northeast corner of Ontario Street and Main Street.
• Canadian Tire located where Time Square was.
• Milford Keffer was just west of the Cawthra Building on the north side. (Also owned by Aubrey Pollock, C.O. Nash and Keneth Mills).
• Botsford Street was the site of a livery stable, whose owner saw into the future and converted to service cars and provide petrol.
• E.A. Boyd, across from the Old Town Hall, next to the Metropolitan Rail Station (became Geer and Byers later).

It is interesting to note the British American Oil Company maintained a huge oil storage facility on Superior Street and the Canadian Oil Company/Imperial Oil had storage tanks at the CN Station on Superior.

There were several gas stations on Eagle and, of course, at the intersection of Yonge and Eagle. Many were listed with both a Yonge Street address and an Eagle Street address, so it became a little confusing keeping them all sorted.

• Morton Brothers station, on the south side of Eagle between Sandford and Yonge (also owned by F. McCall).
• Dutch Elliott’s Esso was on Eagle and Kathrine Crescent on the northeast corner.
• Bryan’s B.P. Station, on Eagle where Big Bone is now situated.
• The Choppin Brothers station, on the southeast corner of Eagle and Yonge.
• Fergie Taylor had a Shell station at the corner of Eagle and Church Street, northeast corner.

As you can imagine, there have been gas stations on Huron (Davis Drive) from the very beginning.

• William Dunn station garage, on the north side of Davis, west of Eves Lumber, taken over by J. Moss and Arthur Fildey and Henry Blair.
• Cecil Taylor had an Imperial Oil station at the corner of Davis and Yonge.
• C.H. Thompson, located on Prospect, just north of Srigley Street.
• Ray Twinney’s Gulf station was on the northwest side of Davis across from the Plaza.
• A Texaco on the north side of Davis, where the Tim Hortons is located.
• On the south side of Davis, there was a Shell station at Parkside across from the Plaza.
• Murray MacPherson’s station was on the southwest side of Charles Street and Davis, also owned by Harold Gordon, and I knew it better as ‘Charlie’s’ for Charlie Gordon.
• Sedore owned a station on the northeast corner of Davis and Alexander across from the hospital.

There have been a plethora of gas stations on Yonge over the years. Many carried non-Yonge Street addresses such as those around Davis Drive or Eagle Street back then.

• Lloyd Fowler had a station on Yonge Street.
• I also remember a Petrofina and a Supertest station on Yonge Street.

The individual station was soon replaced by the corporate chains — Gulf, Esso, Shell, etc.

I thought it would be interesting to conclude with a quick look at a couple of these chain stations and how they originated.

Petro-Canada, now owned by Suncor Energy, was originally started in Montreal in 1919 and was a Crown corporation until 1991, when it went public. Its stations are everywhere in our area.

Exxon was founded in New Jersey in 1973. Even though it still uses the single name Exxon, it merged in 1999 with Mobil and is now known as ExxonMobil.

Esso and Shell were founded in 1912 in Irving, Texas. They are owned by ExxonMobil, an American company.

Chevron was owned by the Chevron Corporation, the largest oil company in the United States. It acquired Texaco in 2000 and now calls itself Chevron Texaco. Texaco was founded in 1901 in Beaumont, Texas.

Shell is headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands. North American Shell gas stations were founded in 1912 and are owned by an American corporation, Royal Dutch Shell. 

The number of gas stations grew as the new subdivisions arrived. We were much less aware of who owned the station, becoming known by its brand name instead.

This listing is not, by any means, a complete listing of the many service stations that have graced Newmarket over the years, and wasn’t intended to be. Many of you have sent me your own memories, so thank you for participating in this review.

I hope you have enjoyed this brief history of the gas station and I hope it brought back some memories for you, be it your first car or the price of gas back then.

Sources: The Memorable Merchants and Trades 1930 to 1950, by Eugene McCaffrey and George W. Luesby; The Memorable Merchants and Trades 1950 to 1980, by Eugene McCaffrey; Stories of Newmarket — An Old Ontario Town, by Robert Terrence Carter; Newmarket Old Boys Reunion program, 1939; Newmarket, Aurora and Richmond Hill telephone directory, 1955; ad in Purple & Gold Yearbook, 1928; Newmarket ‘The Hub of York County’ from the Newmarket Junior Chamber of Commerce, 1961; A History of Newmarket, by Ethel Trewhella; input from you, our readers.

Newmarket resident Richard MacLeod, the History Hound, has been a local historian for more than 40 years. He writes a weekly feature about our town’s history in partnership with Newmarket Today, conducts heritage lectures and walking tours of local interest, and leads local oral history interviews.