The Last One

The open road passing through the Land of Enchantment, UFOs, and John Denver resembles the majestically open skies above it: a vast declaration of appreciation for a beautiful land and for a sense of freedom one can only feel when the four wheels are turning on the ash-colored dusty tarmac, everywhere-bound. This is the magic of the Route 66 metamorphosis: as the road opens ahead and that speedometer rolls to increase in number, everything changes, and everyone too can change with it.

Look and You Will Find

Tucked away between Albuquerque and the Indian Hills, is the quaint town of Moriarty, a lesser-known destination that early in 1937 got a seat of honor at the Route 66 table. There, is a giant, electric sign that welcomes travelers from around the country to a quiet village. The marker, erected on the side of the road in an almost palm-tree fashion, is not what one might expect — it does not act as a gateway or civic sign to greet and receive passing or visiting crowds. It’s the sign of a vintage gas station, of bright yellow tinge, a vermillion-red frame and font — all the colors that best represent the essence and earnestness of the supple Southwestern state.

The sign is enriched by resilient characteristics: it proudly wears its two letters “WB” in a vertical line, like a badge of honor, and the words “Whiting Bros.” in a horizontal banner transversely almost as to represent a cross sign, as a testament to the hard work and dedication of the station’s four founding brothers, as well as its current owner, all in a special illustration of a forgotten era of an America that once was. The big flaming letters are lit 24/7: they shine, illuminated by the persistent sunbeams by day and make themselves known through electrified tubes of neon glass by night, brightly glowing in the desert’s stark darkness.

Starting off in St. Johns, Arizona, the Whiting Bros. station “franchise” quickly made its way across the New Mexico Stateline. All the stations were designed in a simple yet efficient fashion, being easily recognizable and welcoming. This was a brand that motorists grew to trust. The buildings were of linear, geometric architecture, sleek and streamlined in form, made of light-colored concrete or white stucco, adorned with steel or aluminum shapes of eye-catching red and yellow tints.

But after five decades of flourishing activity and “Serving the West since 1917,” the iconic WB signs began to be torn down, with many sold and replaced by modern, now-household names such as Shell. By 1990, the Whiting brothers had sold their last petrol station, and by that time, the surviving ones were most likely being supplied by smaller petrol distributors and kept running at a loss. These were the hard times, but the brand has had a heck of a journey.

A Family Traveling Through History

The story of the Whiting family dates back to over 120 years ago. Edwin B. was born on September 9th, 1809, in Massachusetts, to Elisha, a wagon and chair maker, and Sally, a poet — a delicate, artistic talent that would later be passed on through many generations of Whitings. The family of fourteen moved from Massachusetts to the western frontier of Ohio in 1815 which, with its high supplies of raw materials, better suited the patriarch’s trade which son Edwin B later joined as the two established a chair factory together.

Mary Elizabeth Cox was to be Edwin’s wife. Just like him she had settled in Ohio with her family too, and, just like Edwin, she was a member of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, a Mormon. Mary lived a comfortable youth, and moved by her passion for reading and learning, she earned herself a certificate to start teaching English (and later religious studies) in school; her classes were held in the small town of Lima, Illinois, where in the early 1840s she met Edwin. Mary was baptized in the Mississippi River in 1845 and a year later entered the “celestial order of marriage” with Edwin Whiting and his already present wives, Elizabeth and Almira. The couple’s first born came into the world in 1847, just as they, together with “the company” were making their way into the Great Salt Lake region via a long and exhausting journey through vast and unexplored parts of the country. They arrived in Utah’s main city on October 28, 1849. Mary thought that the place was the prettiest she’d ever seen, with green trees on the side of the roads and still-blooming orchids.

Mary and Edwin settled in, and the family soon expanded. Together, they went on to have nine kids and a long, prosperous, and busy life with the patriarch becoming captain of the militia in the Walker War and then Mayor of Manti, Utah, passing away on December 9th 1890, age 81. Mary herself passed away on July 15, 1912.

Edwin M. married Anna Maria Isaacson in 1877 and settled in Winslow, Arizona, where he worked at the Santa Fe Railroad and later continued the family tradition of lumber-working by establishing his own company. The couple, like his parents, had nine children, including Edwin Isaacson. This is where the story of the “Whiting Bros.” really starts.

Serving Arizona

In 1914, in St. Johns, Arizona, Edwin Isaacson and his brothers Arthur, Ernest, and Ralph established a small garage business that provided automotive maintenance and repair services. The Whiting brothers were pioneers in many respects, today, we would call them “entrepreneurs” and “marketing geniuses.” They recognized the urgency and value of “brand identity” and “product development” early on. This attention to detail and the strive for great benefit systems to be put into place for loyal customers and employees made the stations a prosperous and roaring business from the 1920s all the way into the 1970s. The WB gas stations, cafes, motels, and convenient stores were meticulously designed and developed in alluring but standardized architectural design, becoming familiar and recognizable stops for anybody crossing the Southwestern heartlands. The headquarters were established in 1927 in Holbrook, Arizona.

“The brothers started by selling gasoline in 55-gallon drums and later on started building small stations like this one in Moriarty, 40 miles east of Albuquerque, and they expanded into Texas, Northern Utah, all the way to California,” said Salomon Lucero, life-long employee, and a cheerful 85-year-old with a lot of stories to tell. “The stations were more than 100, I cannot tell you the exact number, but I guarantee that there were more than 100 WB stations. They were really nice people to work for, you know.”

Sadly, disaster struck in 1961, when two of Edwin Isaacson’s children, whom he had with his wife Ethel Farr, died tragically in a private-plane crash. Edwin and Virgil were set to take over the Whiting “empire.” They were headed to a business engagement in Phoenix when the small plane, piloted by Virgil, crashed, and the two brothers lost their lives, leaving their aging father, to inevitably start detaching himself from the business. He never recovered from their untimely death and passed away two years later himself, in 1963.

By the 1970s, disaster struck again, and the Whiting Bros. stations started to crumble under the pressures of a modernized world and the weight of the family tragedy. The decrease in traffic at the WB locations on the US Highways, including Route 66, as a result of Interstates being built to bypass these roads, had an extreme financial hit on Whiting family-owned stations and by 1985, the brand was almost out of business.

Different Family, Same Traditions

“They [the WB brothers.] bought the Moriarty property from my husband’s father, Mr. Pogue, almost 70 years ago. They wanted property on Route 66, which was incredibly busy at the time, and this station in Moriarty was the 3rdbusiest station in the whole chain,” said Debbie Pogue, Sal Lucero’s business neighbor, friend, and owner of Sunset Motel. “The brothers were really good to their employees. Inez used to show me all these pictures and tell me about how the brothers would take their employees on fishing trips and organize activities… just really treating them all like family.”

Route 66 was central to the fortune of the brand as it carried the warmth and familiarity of forty of the 100+ “WB” stations for many years and through many States and many miles. It still carries that warmth today, all the way to the small New Mexico town and its passionate owner who, together with his family, in perfect Whiting Bros. style, kept the station going through passing decades and continual changes.

“Sal spends his days working and talking to everybody, he has rheumatoid arthritis but that does not stop him, he’s up every morning at 7 am… he says if he ever sits down, he’ll never get back up again,” said Pogue. “I think that’s where he gets his energy from, by telling the story of the Whiting Brothers.”

“I first started working with the WB through my father-in-law, Mr. Ortiz,” said Lucero. “He started working in Eastern New Mexico for them. Then he moved and started working here in the Moriarty station. I took it in over in 1969 because he got hurt and had to retire. Me and Inez were married 54 years. I met her in one of these stations in New Mexico, she was helping her daddy at the time. At that time, Route 66 kept us busy, and we were open 24 hours, 7 days a week. I was busy, busy, busy when I was younger! We raised our two girls and one boy here on the station’s grounds. My girls, Theresa and Rebecca, my boy Raymond… I remember they would run around the place as they were growing up.”

Now that the kids are older, they still get involved, keeping the original Whiting tradition of family business going. “When the kids grew up, they started helping me and their mother run the place. We kept it a family tradition, like it was born to be, and they still help me today. But I also have four grandkids and two great-grandchildren.”

“Sal stopped pumping gas in the early 1990s when it got to the point that he was making only 0.2 cents on a gallon and that wasn’t economical,” added Pogue. However, the station is still a popular Mother Road stop, with domestic and international visitors passing through to take photographs and say hello daily.

Aside from Lucero’s good cheers, the Moriarty station #72 still stands as an indispensable stop along Route 66 for anyone that wishes to experience true back-in-the-day feels thanks to its original sign, erected in 1964. When Sal and Inez first acquired the station from the brothers in ’85, the property was supposed to be rid of the original sign as the business was to be renamed Sal&Inez’s Service Station. But now, the sign is what makes Lucero famous still to this day as owner of the only “architecturally pure” WB building in the whole country. “There are WB signs in places, there are WB parts of buildings in places but [Lucero] has the whole package and it is the only one” confirms Pogue, who was central to the restoration of the sign as grant writer.

The sign stopped working early into the new millennium and in 2014 the works to restore it finally started. The Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program awarded a cost-share grant in the amount of just under $4,000 with the other half coming in from independent donors and investors. There were over 200 people involved in getting the WB sign restored.

But one day, an unexpected family put a halt on the works, yet a smile of everyone’s face.

“They were 85% of the way done with the restoration and the electrician was into the sign to hook up all the neon and carry out the last electricity work. All of a sudden, he comes screaming down the ladder with this huge owl following him out of the sign.” Recalls Pogue.

It wasn’t just one single owl, but a whole family of them. In order to bring back the delight and glow of the old neon, the owls had to be rehomed and their survival had to be ensured. The former was an expense that the budget could not afford, the alternative would have been to stall the works and keep the nocturnal animals in their “vintage home” until they could leave on their own account. “Fish and Wildlife said that it would have taken 4/5 weeks which meant that one issue was solved but we had to write for an extension for the grant and, in the meantime, try to get everybody who donated money to remain interested in the project. We installed cameras inside the sign and broadcasted the owl’s daily habits over the internet on a website that we named owlson66.comand it got crazy. We had a family from Germany show up to see the owls, another family from DC showed up, we had people from everywhere.”

In December 2014, with a delay of a few months, the works were finally done and sign was back to its former 60s glory. “When we were done, we had a huge celebration, and it was great. It was really small-town-cute with fireworks and folk music. This station is Sal’s life and the center of our community.” Concluded Pogue.

In pretty-as-a-picture New Mexico, Sal and Inez’s service station doesn’t really make any money anymore. According to Lucero, nowadays the station only does vehicle repairs. Lucero’s life is a quiet one, shadowed by memories of the past. “My wife, she’s been gone 10 years now. She was 75 when she passed in 2014. It was a tragic moment for me, we had been together all our lives. But then I thought, I can’t close the shop. When you grow up, you never know what you’re going to be, you’re just doing what life gives you, and I thought, if I closed, then what was I going to do with my life? You know? The place keeps me busy. This is the only WB still operating. Most of them are locked-up or being torn down, and this is the only one that’s going, the only one that’s alive! When I first started, when I was young, I didn’t have a home. At the time, the brothers provided me with a home next door and still today, this is my home!”

Rest in Rust

Along the oldest highways in America and across changing landscapes and faces, there are still a few vacant petrol stations that bear the original Whiting Brothers branding. These stations are still visible, but have long been abandoned and left to rust, once again consumed by Mother Nature. Time has not been kind to many stations along Route 66, but some are being restored, if not for use, for recollection and celebration; a celebration of a time when the ma-and-pa petrol station ruled the highway. Sal Lucero’s lonely stop along New Mexico’s serene stretch of Mother Road stands as a perfect tribute to a family’s legacy and a time when family owned businesses dominated the roadway.

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