SALENA ZITO: Talking electric vehicles at the oldest gas station in America.
Mr. Brown — who has worked at Reighard’s for over 27 years — explained that the station originally “was a blacksmith shop run by a man named George Hinkle who also sold kerosene, lamp oil, things of that nature.” By 1909 Hinkle started seeing more and more horseless carriages clattering down the pike and, being an enterprising fellow, he started selling gasoline.
In the early days of the American filling station, drivers bought their gas from blacksmiths like Hinkle, first in open containers, then with free standing pumps. “He bought his petroleum products from a guy named Sam Reighard, and eventually Hinkle sold out to Sam’s son George. It remained in the family in this same spot until 1978, when Martin Oil Company purchased us,” Mr. Brown said.
Often attached to a hardware store, pharmacy or even a diner, the first American gas stations grew and changed and flourished because of the free market — not because the government subsidized and incentivized them.
Which is exactly what the current administration did in the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which allots $7.5 billion to build out a nationwide network of 500,000 electric vehicle chargers.
As one long-time congressional staffer said, “The government wants to do whatever it can to get the consumer to get an electric vehicle and have you stop using fossil fuels; that includes pushing the building of EV charging networks.”
It’s something all of us are footing the bill for in our taxes.
Mr. Brown says as far has he knows the government didn’t have taxpayers pay for the first filling stations that sprouted up across the country, as innovators continued to make newer, faster and better cars: “No one gave those small businessmen and women money to build these places — that came out of their own hard work and their own pocketbook.”
Today, government is in the business of picking sides; it is clear they are rooting for the demise of gas stations and want everyone to use EVs.
They’re idiots and should leave us alone. But there are insufficient opportunities for graft and self-importance in that.