This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I’m checking out a shot that may be a little more relevant to today than it may seem at first. It is a photo from 1974 and it comes from the DC Historical Society.
The scene is of the service station that still stands at the northeast corner of Wisconsin and Q St. It’s an Exxon now, but back then it was a Gulf Station. Other than the lack of a canopy, it looks pretty similar to present day.
What is notable about this shot is the “No Gas” sign. The photo was taken during the tail end of the 1973 oil crisis. This was caused by an embargo by OAPEC against countries that supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War. This caused wise spread gas shortages around the United States, and scenes like this of gas stations out of gas were common.
Will another violent war in the Middle East produce scenes like this again? Time will tell.
The 1973 embargo came to an end in March 1974, although high gas prices continued for a while after. The prices didn’t return to the pre-embargo rates until the mid-80s.
Gulf stations disappeared around then too. The oil company merged with Standard Oil of California and became Chevron in 1985. You occasionally see the Gulf name on gas stations around the country, but those are just the result of IP licensing deals with local stations. There’s no Gulf Oil company anymore.
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
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