Bert Walker’s Sinclair Filling Stations

Here is a picture which appeared on Facebook recently as “Vintage Nebraska, 1927 - Seward”. It is looking west on Seward St. from the 4th St. corner. The Courthouse dome shows over the top of the buildings west of the corner gas station. It was the gas station that really caught my eye. As I enlarged the picture, it appears that it may have been it’s “Grand Opening”. It was my Uncle Bert Walker’s and I have memories of stopping by the station while walking to our house on the west edge of town back in the early ’30’s. It was there that I remember seeing a dial telephone for the first time on Uncle Bert’s desk.

 Walt Eicher had a battery shop in the old wooden building west of the station. The lower picture is of Uncle Bert (the big guy) and Toy Weaver, a helper, that was taken in the early ’30’s looking south. There was a narrow “pit” bricked up on the south side of the station. Cars would drive over the pit and an attendant would go down the steps at the far end of the pit to drain the oil, etc. Uncle Bert was at this location until about 1937 when  State Highway #34 was moved from Seward St. a block south to Main St. At that time he went into a new Sinclair Station between the Windsor Hotel at the corner of 6th & Main and the Star Hamburger  run by Chris and Heine Christensen. He moved on to other business during WWII.