By James M. Stege

Let your mind wander back to the days of 9-foot wide, tree-lined brick roads, courteous attendants, and RC Cola bottle caps stuck in hot asphalt pavement.  As evidenced by the plight of old filling stations over the last 30 years, they are memories growing harder to recreate in today's Florida.

On Monday, October 12  at 7:00 p.m. James Stege will present a program on  the evolution and status of Florida’s first efforts to dispense fuel to automobiles and the essential nature of its original gasoline stations.

In order to better understand the stations’  development, their eventual decline and their bellwether role in our history, Stege first needed a good picture of Florida’s early road system.  Using a 1927 road map and a detailed county road atlas (The Gazeteer), Mr. Stege followed the routes of Florida’s first seven State Roads and photographically catalogued many of those stations that existed in the mid-1980s.

James Stege, AIA, is an architect with Schenkel Shultz Architecture, Inc. He holds a Master of Architecture  and a Bachelor of Design from the University of Florida and a Bachelor of Science in Commerce from Washington and Lee University.  Mr. Stege is a member of the board of trustees of the St. Augustine Historical Society.

Sponsored by the St. Augustine Historical Society, the program  will be held in the Flagler Room of Flagler College at 74 King Street.  The program is free and open to the public. Seating is first come, first serve. The Historical Society can be reached at 824-2872.