Teapot Dome Service Station, Zillah, Estados Unidos

 

Teapot Dome Service Station, Zillah, Estados Unidos
Zillah - Estados Unidos
Fotografia


Texto 1:The Teapot Dome Service Station is a former gas station built in the shape of a teapot located in Zillah, Washington, United States, that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Located at 117 First Avenue, the station is an example of novelty architecture. It was intended as a reminder of the Teapot Dome Scandal that rocked the presidency of Warren G. Harding and sent Interior Secretary Albert Fall to prison for his role in leasing government oil reserves in, among other places, Teapot Dome, Wyoming.
The station was built in 1922 on what later became U.S. Route 12. The building has a circular frame with a conical roof, sheet metal "handle", and a concrete "spout". Many such novelties were constructed as roadside attractions as the national highway system in the United States expanded during the 1920s and 1930s. The unique service station continued operation as a full-service gas station for some years. When Interstate 82 was constructed near Zillah in 1978 the station was relocated less than a mile down the Yakima Valley Highway. After the gas station was closed in 2006, it was purchased by the city the following year, rehabilitated, and relocated in 2012 to 117 First Avenue. It now serves as Zillah's visitors center.
Texto 2:
According to local lore, the creator of this handle-and-spout station, Jack Ainsworth, came up with the idea of a giant teapot one night in 1922 when he was drinking moonshine, playing cards, and talking politics with some friends. 1922 was the year of the Teapot Dome Scandal, named for the Teapot Dome oilfields that had been illegally leased by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior in exchange for a $100,000 bribe. Although Zillah, Washington, was nowhere near Teapot Dome, Ainsworth thought it would be funny to build a service station -- whose products come from oil -- in the shape of a teapot.
He built it himself, on a roadside property next to his dad's general store. The teapot was 14 feet wide, 13 feet high, and had a blinking light at the top of the lid. The handle was made of cement; the spout doubled as a chimney for the station's wood-burning stove.
Decades passed. In 1978 the teapot's door and windows were caved-in by a drunk's car, and had to be restored. Then the teapot, along with its outhouse and neon "GAS" sign, were moved a mile down the road to make way for the construction of Interstate 82.
In 1985, still pumping gas, the station was added to the National Register of Historic Places. It wasn't until 2004, after 82 years in business, that the Teapot Dome station finally shut down. The building was abandoned, peeling, and overgrown, losing a bit of its charm with each passing year.
Had Jack Ainsworth's rib-tickling teapot finally stopped being funny? No way! In 2012 the city of Zillah raised enough money to purchase, move, restore, and re-purpose the teapot into a tiny Visitor Center. Although no longer a gas station, the teapot had decorative vintage gas pumps installed out front -- to remind everyone that in its past it had something to do with petroleum, and a very old joke.