HOW A TENNESSEE TOWN SAVED AN AIRPLANE THAT NEVER FLEW: Nearly two decades of work by residents and preservationists saved an iconic plane-shaped gas station outside Knoxville, Tennessee.
Around 1930, Elmer and Henry Nickle built the airplane as a novelty gasoline service station. The pumps sat underneath its wing. Neither one of them was a pilot; reportedly, Elmer just liked planes—but the Nickles were savvy businessmen hoping to capitalize on the business of automobile travel.
In the ʼ30s, automobiles became more affordable and highways began to stretch across America, making car travel a feasible and fashionable option for tourism and adventure. This created a demand for on-the-go gasoline dispensing. (Previously, drivers would buy fuel somewhere like a hardware store and pour it themselves.) Scores of mom-and-pop roadside gasoline service stations—or, in this case, brother-and-brother—competed to fill those tanks, and owners had to do what they could to attract traffic. So Elmer and Henry collaborated with engineer Wayne L. Smith to design their station in the shape of an airplane.
The article doesn’t mention it, but plane looks much like Charles Lindbergh’s iconic 1927 Atlantic-crossing “Spirit of St. Louis” – except quite a bit bigger. I assume that styling was intentional.