The original caption of this 1931 photo of people walking toward the northwest corner of Fairfax and Drexel Avenues was the dual-lamp streetlight. But what really caught my eye was (a) the Richfield gas station regular gas for 8½ cents per gallon and ethyl for 11½, and (b) the billboard for Laura Scudder’s Mayflower potato chips. I associate Laura Scudder with peanut butter but evidently she pioneered the use of bags to keep chips fresher longer (initially using wax paper, which her workers would seal using an iron.) Also, that tall grass on the sidewalk could do with a weed whacker.
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Laura Scudder moved to Monterey Park, California, where her husband Charles ran a gas station (a garage and attached brick building at the northeast corner of Atlantic and Garvey). She began making potato chips there in 1926 and peanut butter in 1931. The cheapest gas I ever bought was at a gas station in Texas in 1965 for 15 cents a gallon.
In the late 30’s , my Mom was driving our 1938. Plymouth auto. We bought gas at the station. Then I noticed the Laura Scudder Potato Chip sign. Drove around the corner, and purchased our very first potato chips. I am now almost 93, but those chips were a luxury in a ‘tight economy.’
Hi Marilyn! And thanks for stopping by and sharing your memories. I hadn’t thought about that but yes, I can imagine that store-bought chips would have been quite the luxury during tight times!