Editor’s note: This is the first of two parts.

Wherever there’s a concentration of similar business firms in a certain neighborhood of a city, that area could likely acquire a special designation. This could result in names like cafe corner, hamburger avenue, fast food lane, dime store block, or here in Albert Lea a place once called “Gasoline Alley.”

For travelers and truck drivers, north-south U.S. Highway 65 and east-west U.S. Highway 16 once shared the same route through the east side of Albert Lea. These two highways joined at the corner of South Broadway Avenue and East Main Street and ran together for several miles to a place called the “Y” on the far east side of Albert Lea. Here, the highways separated and resumed their designated routes.

In a three- to four-block portion of the city known as Babcock Avenue until the early 1950s, and now as East Main Street, the increase in traffic created a real sales opportunity for several oil companies. As the traffic increased through the years, so did the number of service stations and other firms catering to the vehicle owners and drivers. In fact, a listing in the 1928 city directory shows there were already six service stations on both sides of this highway. And this eventually resulted in the logical nickname of Gasoline Alley being given to this part of the city.

However, the name Gasoline Alley was not actually created for this particular area of Albert Lea at all. The name originated with a then very popular newspaper comic strip known as Gasoline Alley. This creation was conceived by artist Frank King in 1918 and became the first to portray the aging process of characters. Two of the main characters were Walt Wallet and his adopted son, Skeezix.

King, who was born during 1883 in Cashton, Wis., grew up in nearby Tomah, Wis., worked at the Chicago Tribune while drawing the comic strip, retired in 1951, and died in Florida on June 24, 1969. Today, Superior Avenue, the main north-south street in Tomah, has been officially designated as Gasoline Alley.

The city directory listing shows there were seven service stations by 1938 on the highway between what’s now the East Main Street viaduct and the east end of Clark Street. By 1948 the directory shows a total of eight places selling gasoline, motor oil, tires and other automotive services.

From 1948 to 1958 appears to represent the zenith of Albert Lea’s version of Gasoline Alley as the number of service stations increased to 13.

This was the era when the these stations with their attached service bays and even several garages had gasoline pumps in front of their buildings and intensively competed for business from all the traffic passing by.

With the completion of Interstates 35 and 90, traffic along East Main Street started to decline. As a result, the number of gasoline sellers declined to ten by 1968, eight in 1978, four in 1988, and two in 1998, according to city directory listings. Now there are no service stations left in this part of the city as reminders of the Gasoline Alley days.

Yet, some of the buildings are still there and being used for other activities. These include a former Mobil station which now has a Blecker Realty sign nearby. Another is the former Oakland and East Side Standard structure now being used by R &D Automotive. Still another building once used by Brooke Oil now has Family Medical Service and Cars-N-Credit as the occupants.

Near this same corner the former Farm-Labor station building is the present location of Hitching Post Hair Salon and Tannng, Quimby Financial Services and SoulPrints Photography. And not far away the present location of Subway on East Main Street replaces still another of the former Gasoline Alley stations.

Next: More information about some of the other former service stations in other neighborhoods of Albert Lea.