Pumped about relics

For the past three years that he has owned Mercedes-Benz service station MBElite on Old Newport Boulevard, 29-year-old Steve Rorick has tried to preserve the location’s historic heritage as the first gas station in Newport Beach.

The other day, the Newport Harbor High School graduate wanted to exchange the heavily rusted cone-shaped lamps hanging from the exterior of the nearly century-old building with newer models with a similar shape. So it was especially exciting for him when, while working on the wiring in the attic crawl space for the conversion, he stumbled upon some old relics.

Covered in what he described as dust “that must have been 100 years old,” Rorick found a collection of sales receipts and invoices, the decorative upper portion of an old-style gas pump and a sales manual distributed by Texaco.

His initial idea was to clear them out and throw them away, but when he tossed them down from the attic, a couple of the other guys working at the shop brushed them off and found dates all the way back to the 1930s.

“I was sneezing for a week after going up there,” Rorick said, referring to the inch-thick dust that covered his finds.

There are sales receipts from the station’s suppliers such as Penzoil Co. and Rio Grande Oil that detailed oil and ethyl purchases of hundreds of gallons for $60 or $70 (precise to the half-cent). There are Bank of America checks made out by its original owner, Ralph Irwin, to Postal Telegraph, and Shipkey and Pearson, and a variety of other people and companies that are dated 1938 and 1939 and had the word “PAID” poked in small holes across the middle.

“I want to do some legwork and see who they’re to and who they’re from,” Rorick said.

There’s even an old illustrated, color brochure distributed by Texaco to tell salesmen about what the company called the revolutionary idea of “Circle Service,” a technique in which a service station owner was supposed to delay customers by advising them to get unnecessary battery and tire service so that salesman could sell other products.

“Your customer appreciates rapid service. The waiting car is your opportunity for showmanship in selling,” the brochure reads.

The biggest find, though, is a gas-globe — a decorative metal circular display sign that used to sit atop gas pumps.

It has the words “Pathfinder Scout Gasoline” emblazoned around the edge, surrounding a picture of an ox-drawn covered wagon carrying a woman with a small child. A rustically bearded man holding a musket stands alongside the two oxen.

One of the mechanic’s grandmothers, who has lived in Newport Beach for about half a century, drove up in her Mercedes sedan Friday morning while a couple of the guys were examining the globe. She was as baffled by the image as the repairmen. What could possibly have less to do with gasoline than an animal-powered cart? she wondered.

Searching the Internet, the guys who run the shop found similar vintage gas globes selling for up to $1,000, but they want to keep theirs along with all of the other items and turn them into a small display chronicling the location’s history for customers to look at when they come in for service.

Reporter ALAN BLANK may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or at [email protected].