There has been a gas station on the southeast corner of Middle and Valley Streets since “Dr.” P.C. Wilson, owner and druggist at Wilson’s Drug Co., constructed the first Shell service station on the large lot he owned there in 1940. Prior to the new building, the footprint of the gas station was an unsightly vacant lot, while the area behind the station had been used as a parking lot and repair shop for the buses of Montevallo’s fledgling Alabama Coaches Co. When it opened, the manager of the Shell Station was Marshall Burgin, but he was only the first of several who came and went during the first few years of operation.
When a bright and enterprising local boy, Bill Lovelady, returned home from military service at the end of World War II in 1945, he bought the business from Dr. Wilson and began a long career associated with the sales and service of automobiles. Described by the Montevallo Times as a “hustling and wide-awake young businessman,” Lovelady wasted no time building a loyal clientele for his service station and was favorably positioned to take advantage of another business opportunity that was not long in coming. In 1949, L.C. Wooten, the owner of Wooten Motor Co. on Main Street, the Ford dealer for Shelby County, sold the dealership to Lovelady, who then left the gas station to make a name for himself in the car business.
Taking over the Shell station after Lovelady was J.M. “Buddy” Allen. With the coming of Allen, the parade of owners and managers that had gone before came to an abrupt halt. “Buddy” Allen was a model gas station operator and businessman who ran a tight ship and knew how to treat his customers. These were the days of “full-service,” so Allen hired energetic and competent attendants and mechanics and trained them well. When a Montevallo house-wife pulled up to one of the gas pumps, she was met immediately by an employee who knew her by name and who proceeded to check the car from stem-to-stern while filling the tank with gasoline. Allen ran the station for the better part of 20 years and by 1967 was able to tear down the original Wilson building and replace it with a shiny new Shell “prototype” style station building that the company supported and encouraged its dealers to adopt and build.
After Allen, several more owners and managers operated the business until the “gas station” concept was abandoned for the convenience store model. Customers can still buy gas at the “Food Mart” that is there today, but it's a different brand than the original and they will have to pump it themselves. The days of the Shell "service" station on Middle Street have definitely come and gone.
Thank you Clay Nordan, Vice President of Montevallo Historical Society, for this information!
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