A treasure trove of local oil memorabilia, classic cars and an iconic service station in Oil City will be going up for auction this week.
Bob Fry said he has been thinking for some time about auctioning off Short Street Motorcars on the South Side and his extensive collection of local oil relics.
The collection and the building that houses it will be auctioned Saturday, June 10, beginning at 9 a.m., by Triple States Family Auctions.
Fry repainted the sturdy peak-roofed station inside and out with Quaker State colors — green and white — and filled the expansive garage bays and interior with antique cars and local oil memorabilia, giving the place a museum-like quality.
“I always wanted to own this building,” Fry said of the gas station. The opportunity presented itself when Fry was in the process of retiring from his business, Village Auto, in Rocky Grove after 35 years.
It happens that the brick station is across the street from where Bob Fry’s great-grandfather, city police chief George W. Fry, once lived.
Built in 1929 along Short Street and on the site where a Dale family mansion once stood, the gas station was the first Quaker State franchise service station to open.
The one-block length location was known as Short Street until a city map change in the 1930s added it to the longer Wilson Avenue.
In that period, its most familiar owners were Vernon “Rudy’’ Rudolph and his brother-in-law, Harold Lilly, who bought the station in 1946. Lilly & Rudolph became a popular gas station and a hangout of sorts on the city’s South Side.
Fry fondly recalled growing up in Oil City when it was a bustling, prosperous place.
“Growing up in the 50s and 60s young men almost always became motorheads, it was affordable then. It isn’t now,” Fry recalled of his early love of cars.
After getting out of the service and working on a PhD in history in the 1970s, Fry said he found there were no jobs available to him in academia, so he turned to another long time interest of his — cars — and went into the auto business.
The gas station, later a Gulf station, eventually closed its doors in early 2005. Fry bought the sturdy brick building a short time later and converted it into a car dealership.
“The last 18 years have been a labor of love. I knew business would be slower. Me and my wife both wanted this building. I knew it was the first Quaker State service station,” Fry said.
Over decades, Fry has amassed quite a collection with a local theme — Quaker State, Pennzoil and Wolfs Head.
“People started giving things to me because everybody had a basement full of Quaker State or Pennzoil stuff,” Fry recalled about the time when he came to Oil City and word got around he was collecting local oil memorabilia.
One time, Fry said a man stopped by and gave him an old bicycle with wooden wheels he had found while cleaning out. The man said the bike had been his great-grandmother’s, and Fry believes it is from about 1915.
Fry’s collection includes classic cars, old gasoline pumps with lighted glass globes, bicycles, miniature fuel trucks, oil cans, model cars and more.
The most quirky, unusual item is the “hotdog man,” a hotdog in a bun that has a face and arms applying ketchup that stands more than six feet tall. It sits in the window at Short Street Motorcars looking mischievously at passersby on East First Street.
“My wife saw it and laughed and laughed. Everybody who has seen it has laughed,” Fry said. He said he purchased the unique piece at an auction in Erie about 20 years ago.
Fry said he doesn’t have future plans but added he will be keeping his dealer license and probably continue to tinker with classic cars.
“I’ve been at this for about 52 years now,” Fry said.
