Gartner remembers the old downtown gas station
April 2021
ROBIN FISH/ENTERPRISE
Nick Gartner started working at Steve's Service in 1983, then aged 17. In 1999, he bought the business, then located at the northwest corner of U.S. Hwy. 71 and State Hwy. 34 in downtown Park Rapids. In 2017, the old gas station was torn down to make way for a Simonson Station Store. Nick's Service lives on as a tow service and repair shop at 150th St. and Hwy. 71.
By Robin Fish rfish@parkrapidsenterprise.com For almost 70 years, a gas station stood at the northwest corner of the main highway crossing in downtown Park Rapids. In a few months, pending completion of a Simonson Station Store now under construction, one will stand there again. Nick’s Service is gone from that location – as the repair shop, fuel stop and convenience store was known from 1999 to 2017. But Nick’s Service lives on, three miles to the south. Owner Nick Gartner shared memories about the old downtown gas station that has now passed into history.
Youth hangout
Gartner has a framed picture of the old filling station on the office wall at his garage’s new location at 14632 150th St., off U.S. Hwy. 71. It shows the shop as it looked on Memorial Day, 1963, as the parade grand marshal’s car drove past on State Hwy. 34. At that time, it was a full-service fuel stop with two service
Inside this issue... SUBMITTED PHOTO
A vintage fire truck rides in style on the back of a Nick's Service flatbed tow truck. bays and a small glassed-in office at one end. There wasn’t even an awning over the driveway. “It was built in 1948, and there’s always been a service station on that corner,” said Gartner, who grew up in Park Rapids. “My mom and dad were both originally from this area, and I think that was the
first thing to be on that corner, was a gas station.” Gartner said his parents, Walter and Helen, remember when the place was new. In 1983, at the age of 17, he went to work for Steve Thompson at a
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