Faded Highways

Cloquet, Minnesota is pulling out the stops this year to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the only existing Frank Lloyd Wright-designed gas station. The Spur station, a Phillips 66 until last year, at 202 Cloquet Avenue has been in continuous operation since October 31, 1958. Wright designed three filling stations during his career. This is the only that was built.

The Lindholm Oil Company ran the Phillips 66 in 1958, and was owned by the Lindholm family. The Lindholms employed Wright to design the station a few years after they hired him to design their Cloquet home, Mantyla, in 1952. The gas station occupies the corner of Minnesota Routes 33 and 45 in downtown Cloquet and has been on the National Register of Historic Places since September 11, 1985.

The design for the station was part of Wright’s Broadacre City plan, a plan he conceived as a “Utopian vision of a decentralized urban landscape.” Broadacre City called for each U.S. family to be given one acre of land that would be the basis for a Wright-designed community. There was to be a train station, a few office buildings and apartment buildings with all transportation relying on the automobile. At first glance, the plan seems to include elements of “urban sprawl” that are looked upon rather negatively today.

Wright’s comments on gas station design in the context of the Broadacre City:

Watch the little gas station…. In our present gasoline service station you may see a crude beginning to such important advance decentralization; also see the beginning of the future humane establishment we are now calling the free city. Wherever service stations are located naturally these so often ugly and seemingly insignificant features will survive and expand. [The new city]… is all around us in the haphazard making, the apparent forces to the contrary notwithstanding. All about us and no plan. The old order is breaking up
- Frank Lloyd Wright, 1930

The plan itself was never implemented anywhere, despite Wright tweaking it until his death in 1959. Not only is the Spur station in Cloquet Wright’s only completed gas station, it is the only building from Wright’s entire Broadacre plan that was ever built. It is a two story structure made of concrete, cypress wood, glass and boasts a 32 ft. cantilevered copper canopy. Wright had to modify the design a bit to meet fire codes in Carlton County, eliminating the planned overhead fuel lines. Otherwise, the station is built to Wright’s original design, complete with a second story observation/waiting lounge for the four bay service facility.

The town of Cloquet and Carlton County are embracing the 50th anniversary and have events planned all summer to commemorate their one-of-a-kind Frank Lloyd Wright treasure. The town and county have worked together in recent years to refurbish the station, and can now show off that work to the public in an exhibition scheduled from June 12-September 11, 2008 at the Carlton County Historical Society. Guided tours of the station will be offered every Saturday afternoon during that time. According to the Cloquet, MN website there will also be a symposium on August 7 at the Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College with an architect that worked on the design with Wright.

Even though I haven’t seen the station yet, the hard work and seemingly thoughtful preservation efforts of Cloquet and Carlton County make it worth it to me to pay what will no doubt be $4.00/gallon in gas to drive up and visit. This is the kind of thing I live for and I can’t wait to take one of the tours.

I wonder how much gas costs at the Spur today? And what it cost for the drivers of 1958? Do you live in Cloquet or its vicinity? What do you think of the station and its design? Please leave a comment or send me an email.