The Edgefield Garage, 1027-1029 S. Edgefield, opened in 1925 on the northwest corner of Edgefield and Jimtown Road (re-named Clarendon Drive in 1933). In the 1930s, it was called The Edgefield & Clarendon Garage, probably reflecting the local proliferation of gasoline dispensing stations and a need to distinguish itself from all the other service stations in the area. Sometime between 1950 and 1960 it became Oak Cliff Texaco, and by 1962 it was Dave Gray Texaco.

What kind of gasoline the garage dispensed in its early days is unclear. In 1985 the remnants of a Marathon logo remained visible on the bricks, but  Marathon didn’t acquire the “best in the long run” slogan until 1930, and when Marathon introduced itself to Oak Cliff in 1930 with five official Marathon service stations, the Edgefield Garage wasn’t one of them.  Nor was the Garage listed as a Marathon station in a 1936 city directory (Marathon #3 was located 14 blocks west on Clarendon at Montreal). Perhaps the Edgefield Garage dispensed Marathon gasoline without being an “official” company station.

The red brick building with its distinctive green tile roof still stands, and is home to several auto repair shops. Alas, the Texaco sign is gone, and the Marathon logo has been painted over.

photo by John Cirillo

I love these fiberglass “muffler men”. This one’s still standing at the SE corner of Illinois and RLThornton Freeway as part of Brothers Mufflers company. Bud and Ben Mufflers was originally called Bud and Ken Mufflers. I seem to remember their first building was on the west side of the freeway access road as you approached Illinois Ave., but that may be the imperfect memory of a little kid.  That would have been around 1965. We used to wonder what happened to Ken and if the “B” in Ben was just an easy way to replace the “K” in Ken.