In recent decades the number of gas stations have fallen in the region to a very low number. Boothbay Harbor has two: Good ’N You with full and self service on Townsend Avenue and self-service Irving on the meadow. North Boothbay has one self-service station at T&D Variety near the Railway Village. If that is the norm by today's standard, then there was a surprising number of gas stations dotting the region from the late 1920s to the 1950s, and they were in far flung locations. For instance, there was one on Barters Island, three (maybe more) in East Boothbay, three at Linekin and Ocean Point, a few in North Boothbay near the Railway Village, any number in Boothbay Harbor proper (I can think of eight and know there were many more), and some at Boothbay Center.

Red Giles’s Help

Boothbay Center's gas stations are my focus in this article. Red Giles (1912-1996), who had a terrific memory, rode with me in my car in the mid-1990s and told me what he knew about pre-World War II Boothbay buildings in many sections of the towns. When he'd give the word I'd pull to the shoulder as I eyed traffic, while busily taking notes and snapping photos. He knew a lot, having worked with his father and brothers moving houses and doing foundation work. Included were long-gone gas stations. Many of the dates when they existed are approximate or missing. I found that to stop someone talking to try to pinpoint dates for each minute change was usually futile. An example is below.

East across from the Boothbay fire station on Route 27 is the site of a house which was moved back hundreds of feet within the last five or ten years. Red said it had been a rental for some decades with various local families in it. He thought John P. Kelly built it and occupants were serially Ben Campbell, Norman Reed, Willis Priest, the Phinnemores, and Frank Lewis. I figured Red would jump out of the car and walk home if I stopped him at each name to come up with dates. I guess he was talking about the late 1920s, early 1930s.

That property was also where Cleve Sayward built a gas station about 1925 to 1930. We have no photo of it. Later after Sayward left that location and the property had been lost to the town for taxes, Red's brother Paul and his brothers, the Giles Boys, moved that station up to the base of Giles Hill Road as the first section of Paul's house, later brother Lincoln's, then brother Roy's. One down.

On the corner rounding into Boothbay Center from Wiscasset is Subway. The site had pumps from at least about 1961 when Sewall's of Bath bought it to just a few years ago. I'd always wake up on that corner when young after a long trip in the car, such as skiing or a visit to faraway relatives. The tar was always bumpy and rough there. I thought there was a station there before Sewall's in 1961. Does anyone remember?

Welsh’s Store Station

Next, many are aware that Welsh's store was a fixture for many decades on the north corner of Common Drive, as it is now called (formerly Pearl Street or unnamed), running along the east and south side of the Common. John H. Welsh bought the store in 1891 and it lasted under that name after Alfred Lewis ran it from the 1950s into the 1990s. Most houses have disappeared from the road, I guess to make the golf course look more upscale. However Welsh's building is still there, now called Merrill Family Chiropractic. In the early 1920s when Red was in school at the Center, Fred Welsh had a small gas station there too and it went into the 1940s at least. The station's little building lasted until 1997 when a town truck ran into both Bet's Fish Fry and it.

Leavitt’s Garage

The site of the town office has had many incarnations, including as a large garage. Joe Giles bought the two-story school building there perhaps in the 1920s, and renovated it into a garage and repair shop. Joe was the road patrolman whose job was to maintain the road by dragging, etc. He built a gas station on the south side of the old school, but sold out before the war. After World War II, Guy Leavitt had the old school cut down and merged Joe's garage with it. Leavitt had pumps too.

South on Route 27 a few hundred feet was a business strip which included the first Center fire house on the east side of the road. It is still there but little else, again I guess to give the golf course a certain look. Next north of it had been Cleve Sayward's house. Steve Alley has a photo of the house showing the first floor called "Sayward's Garage" to which a garage was later added, built by Ernest Blake and Dewey Spofford. They called the structure Central Garage.

I’d be grateful to hear from readers if any know of more gas stations around the Center. Please call the society at 633-0820 and leave a message or call or come in to the museum on a Saturday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. to talk to me.