While many businesses come and go almost yearly in Boothbay Harbor, there are some that have lasted so long that most long-time residents don't remember the town without them.

The gas station at the corner of Union Street Extension and Townsend Avenue in Boothbay Harbor is one. Its looks have changed a few times, but it's been there since cars stopped being a rarity, which puts it back in the 1920s.

Everyone I know calls it "Mac's Gulf station," although it's been the Mobil Good 'N You station for a few years. I'm sure when Mac Andrews took it over, it was still called "Peanut's" for years after the change, and when Peanut Lewis took it over and changed the name, that took some long, slow learning. It takes a while to create and break habits.

Andrews made out my oil change bills to Barbara Hartford a good 10 years after I took back my maiden name! We all do it.

Colby's Filling Station

I'm not sure when the station opened. I called Lucille Machon to ask because her father Ralph Colby started it, but she didn't know for sure.

It had to be before 1930 since the Register reported a miniature golf course opened that year behind Colby's Filling Station. A 1931 directory further identified the mini golf as also Colby's and noted that "Peel" Patten was running the station. The mini golf wasn't mentioned again in 1934 or 1937 – those Depression years dashed a lot of hopes for happy, paying customers.

In 1911 the Standard Oil monopoly was broken up, and among its 34 successors were companies associated with the gas station. Legible in the 1936 photo during Ralph Colby's era are the words Mobiloil and Socony (Standard Oil Company of New York), roughly one entity over the years, with Mobil eventually supplanting the Socony name.

We have, at the historical society, a 1937 receipt for $1 cash for five gallons of gas from Colby's Parking Station, which may indicate that today's parking lot behind the station on Oak Street existed. Also, the 1936 photo shows the back lot empty of little putting platforms and mini-golf obstacles.

That price of 20 cents a gallon was pretty stable, not climbing or falling drastically until the 1970s. It was still only 30 cents a gallon when I was a young driver in the early 1960s.

Us kids would pull into a station after "going to the library" and order 50 cents worth of gas to appease our parents who liked the gas gauge to resemble its earlier state.

'Peanut' Lewis's Gulf Service

After Ralph Colby died in 1945, both Lucille Machon and I are unsure who, if anyone, carried on the business until 1952 when Earland "Peanut" Lewis took over the station as manager of the Calso (Standard Oil of California) franchise.

Union Street Extension was created in 1952, which was surely another advantage for the site's new manager since it completed a square of roads around the four sides of the station. However, the addition of that street multiplied the frequency of accidents at that intersection of Union Street and Townsend Avenue.

By 1954 the Register suggested a traffic light there; the plea was repeated in 1960, and it eventually happened. 

Lewis operated the station for nearly 20 years and enlarged the structure to expand from just pumps to maintenance, as seen in the 1953 shot.

The station became a Gulf franchise later in the 1950s, and branched into fuel oil for more than a decade. Mac Andrews worked there for a bit after he got out of the service in 1954, and he remembered that the radio was always on and often tuned to ball games. Men especially would routinely stop there for the score – Peanut figured out a good draw for gasoline sales!

Mac Andrews to Good 'N You

Mac Andrews left the station for Ned's Garage on the waterfront (now Knot Gray's) where he drove the oil truck and parked cars for a few years, followed by a short stint at the Mobil station that stood at the north juncture of Oak Street and Townsend Avenue (now First National Bank).

He returned to Peanut's Gulf station in 1962 and stayed for almost 10 years, during which Gulf modernized the station with its present look (minus the second story). After Andrews took another break, going to Wiscasset Fuel as a driver for a year, he came back and bought the business from Peanut Lewis, who stayed on at the station after the sale.

Andrews was a permanent part of my adult driving years here in the region. Like Peanut Lewis, when Andrews sold the Gulf station operation in about 2006, he stayed on under the new ownership.

He's still there, working for Ronnie Babcock at what is now a busy Mobil station, just as it started out more than 80 years ago.

I hate to tell you, Mac, but you've been working at that station on and off for almost 60 years.

I remember lots of favors – fixing flat tires on short notice, letting me park there for a few days when my car was sickly and hitting my solenoid to get me started for East Boothbay… I'm sure if any number of people knew I was writing this article, they'd join me in thanking you for all you've done for us over the years!