What’s in a name
The Vermont Street Station is one of those places that I’d had on my list of “I should look in to that” subjects for a long time. It’s a nondescript little office building in the 800 block of Vermont street that bears an evocative name. (Well, it’s evocative if you’re like me, anyway.) No railroad tracks ever ran near that spot (nor were any ever planned). So why the “Station” name in an otherwise nondescript office plaza? I’d long suspected the spot - if not the building itself - had an interesting past…
Turns out, not so much.
The “Station” name always had me envisioning the location as the original spot of an important community business, like a stagecoach station or fire station, from Lawrence’s early history. But it turns out there is a much more prosaic reason it’s called Vermont Street Station: it was a gas station.
According to old city directories, 827 and 829 Vermont - the heart of the lots now occupied by the office building - were vacant as late as 1930, and bookended by the DC Farmer Feed Barn at 823 Vermont and the Albert L Dimery restaurant at 831. The Skelly Oil Co. and Service Station, with it’s distinctive setback design and terracotta roof tile accent, would be built in the next year, covering all four lots. The site was still the Skelly Goodyear gas station (along with an auto parts business) until 1973. In 1974, there was no business listed, and in 1975 a dentist (Jerry Nossaman) and two optometrists (Charles Pohl and Grant Gwinner) were in the location. 1976 would be the first time the name “Vermont Street Station” was used for the structure now standing at 823-831 Vermont. Other than a addition to the east side of the horseshoe shape, the footprint of the building is the same as it was in 1931.
So - it turns out this particular nomenclature cigar is just a cigar. This isn’t the first story idea I’ve chased down for this blog that just sort of fizzled out. But it is still a good example of how often the physical world we live in now is still defined by those who came before us.
