Getting Kicks with Phillips 66

Before Scott Bartlett purchased the building at 326 Vermont Avenue that became known as Scott’s Shop, it had been the site of a gas station, owned or leased by several different people through the years.

Bartlett — who’s been semi-retired for “about four or five years” but still comes down to the shop at times to do a little automotive work — has been working on installing some vintage gasoline pumps, along with some classic “Phillips 66” signs and gas pump globes, at the shop as a reminder of days gone by in Holton.

“I thought I’d clean up the corner and make the place look a little better,” Bartlett said. “There’s a lot of traffic that comes by here. Always has been. But I thought, you know, this would be a decent greeting for people coming into town.”

And while the gas pumps still have a little work to be done on them — Bartlett said he’s looking to add the pumps’ hoses and nozzles in the near future, although they won’t be working pumps — it’s generated some positive comments from people who pass by that corner.

“I’ve had a lot of response. It’s all been positive,” he said. “It’s been a good response.”

The building consists of an “office” area that, as Bartlett noted, used to be a residence before the corner was made into a gas station in 1928, known at one time as the “Gray and Black” gas station named for the two men that owned it at the time. The garage area was added later, he said.

“I can remember coming in here with my dad when I was a kid,” Bartlett said. “This was all concrete outside.”

One of its former owners, he said, was the late Walter Grundeman, who owned the concrete plant that “used to sit right here beside it before they moved it back.”

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