Found an old abandoned gas station off Highway 17 last weekend

I was driving through rural Georgia near Macon and spotted this old Sinclair station that had been boarded up since the 80s according to a local I talked to. The pumps were still there with the prices frozen at 89 cents a gallon and there was a stack of oil change receipts from 1985 sitting on the counter. Has anyone else stumbled onto a place that felt like it was frozen in time like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

derek93910d ago

Is it really "frozen in time" or just abandoned? I've seen a dozen spots like that around the south, and most of them are just trash piles with old junk inside. Those oil change receipts from 85 prove it's been sitting there rotting for almost 40 years, not nicely preserved. The gas prices at 89 cents are neat to see, but by 1985 that was already way down from the early 80s peak of $1.30 or so. It's more like a forgotten mess than a time capsule if you ask me.

dixon.willow10d ago

I read an article once about how a lot of these old stations actually have environmental issues from leaking underground tanks nobody ever dealt with. Makes you wonder if that place is just sitting there because it's too expensive to clean up. Derek's not wrong that 89 cents was already cheap by 85 because the oil glut had crashed prices by then. I'd still love to poke around though, those old Sinclair dinosaurs on the signs are way cooler than the generic gas stations now. Just wouldn't want to be the one who has to pay for the cleanup if you accidentally break something.