The Delmar Delaware Texaco

On May 18^th 1928, George C. Bounds and Hilda Howard Bounds of Hebron, Maryland leased to the Texas Company a piece of land located in Delmar for a gas station. This gas station would become the Texaco Station building located on today’s Bi-State Blvd and what was then called 3^rd street next to what is today the Lil Red Hen School.  The lease called for George Bounds to remove an older building from the property and construct a “modern” service station.  The service station would be built according to the Texas company plan #9304-A.  The property would also have built on it an ornamental lattice fence constructed to the  Texas company plan # 9297-A.   The lease was for ten years and the rent was $100 a month. 

At the time 3^rd street in Delmar was RT13 and all the trucks and cars traveling RT13 came through Delmar.  This resulted in a series of gas stations with one to three pumps from north of town to Leonard Mill pond that would service the traveler.  This would continue until the new dual RT13 east of town was completed in 1954 and all the business went away as vehicles used the dual 13 and bypassed Delmar.

The Texas Company was originally the Texas Fuel Company and it originates in 1902.  It would evolve into today’s Texaco.  In 1911 the company introduced its first “filling Station” and by the 1920s had 229 wholesales terminal that Texaco Gas franchiser/distributors could draw from for their needs.

In 1923, The Texas Company developed the Denver-Type service station as its first national design in order to blend into residential neighborhoods.  It was a house with a canopy/bay style of gas station. 

The Denver-Type station became the first company design to incorporate bays for lubrication and repair. This was the style selected for the Delmar Texaco.  The style varied but Tile roofs, stucco walls, light posts, sign posts, windows pillar globes, brick accents, Texaco star in the roof peak were features of it.  It was a popular style for the 1930 period and could be seem across the United States.

above the Delmar Texaco roof peak with Texaco logo

above example of another Denver style Texaco.  The ornamental lattice fence called for at the Delmar Texaco  has long since rotted away but above you can see a lattice fence which may have been the style called for at the Delmar Texaco.

above 1947 ad

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above 1956 ad

After the dual RT13 opened, business declined in Delmar and about 1980 the gas station ceased as a gas dispenser and became a tire repair and sales place. In 1981 Jack Dryden leased it. Sherwood Francis “Jack” Dryden (1940-2010) with his wife, Janet, ran a successful tire business for almost 20 years.  Today it used for a parking lot for Lil Red Hen. 

A Note about the Texaco Star logo;  A site called Luckymojo has this to say about the logo

A further note on the 5-pointed Texaco star logo: This is, of course, the so-called "Texas Star," which appears on the state's flag, and hence it was a logical logo design for a gasoline company based in Texas...but there is more to it than that.

The Republic of Texas was founded in the 1830s by a group of Freemasons (Austin, Houston, Travis, Bowie, Crockett et al). At that time the well-known Masonic symbol of a square and compasses surrounding the letter G had not yet replaced the older Masonic symbol of a square and compasses surrounding a 5-pointed star. This star, called by Masons the "Blazing Star," is said to represent the Great Architect of the Universe, namely, the creator-god. (This older symbol of a square and compasses with a Blazing Star is still a preferred Masonic emblem in Europe and in American Co-Masonry.) Due to the fraternal connections of the founders of the Republic of Texas, it is highly likely that the use of the Masonic star as the emblem of their new nation was intentional. When Texas became a state in the United States, it retained the same flag it had had as a republic. Thus, whether or not the owners of the Texaco company knew it, they were carrying a Masonic emblem for the Great Architect of the Universe across the nation with their gas stations.