Fill’er Up: The Glory Days of Wisconsin Gas Stations (Wisconsin Historical Society)

Gas stations have become mini-malls for the purchase of junk food, cigarettes and aspirin. But in olden days they were often little Chinese pagodas or Art Deco wonders. Filled with color and black-and-white photographs of eccentric gas stations built before 1950, Fill'er Up reminds us that vernacular architecture can be dream-inducing as well as functional. Architectural historians Jim Draeger and Mark Speltz also issue a polite call to action: Save the dwindling remnants from an earlier automotive age before they disappear entirely. A few of the old stations have been imaginatively repurposed, such as the old Standard Oil transformed into a Milwaukee coffee shop, Sherman Perk (4924 W. Roosevelt Drive).