Old Long Ago Truck Stops

Hi navypoppop, 1st, welcome aboard. The best place I've found is Hank's Truck Picture's. The website is a little hard to navigate( Hank himself apologized to me, saying the site grew too fast) I think you have to sign up as a member, but the old time truck pics and truckstops are great. http://www.hankstruckpictures.com/

 

There is a group on FACEBOOK that posts a lot of pictures / info on the old truck stops < I will get the link for you but if you miss the STUPID side of truck stops check this one out (You do not need to be a member on FACEBOOK to view this one) https://www.facebook.com/PeopleOfTruckstops

 

The documentary style book "Trucker" by Jane Stern is still available on Amazon. Chapter six "His Truck Stop" is thirty pages of interior photos and descriptions of conditions which would be dumps today. The author begins with a place known as "Red Ace" on route 100 wherever that is. Mass 10, Naked City, and Weenieville (Durham, Connecticut) have their pages in the book. "There is something magic happening in broken-down Weenieville that is destroyed under the neon lights of the big truck complexes. As Nancy dishes out chipped beef on toast or calls out for an order of cackles on a raft, she is center stage."

http://www.amazon.com/Trucker-portr...8915747&sr=1-1&keywords=Trucker+by+Jane+Stern

 

Anybody that's ever been to the "Stockyard's 76" off Ashland ave.( I think) in Chicago (gone now) knows what a truckstop of yesterday was all about. ( scary place) I've been to some great little "mom and pop" truckstops year ago, some, no more than a restaurant with a big parking lot, that had the most delicious food, free thermos refills for driver's, it was a great time to be a trucker. The "Hill" in Slinger, Wis, The "Moasis" in Little Chute, Wis., the Lake Mills Truckstop, in Lake Mills, Wis.( who I knew the owner personally, and he took it over from his dad in the '60's, it's still there, but not the same) just to name a few. Man, that was a different time.

 

Semi Retired, tell me about the Stockyards 76. Would love to know since I'm from Chicago.

 

Hi TruckDuo, Halstead, it was on Halstead ave. and was a scary place. Not the best part of town to begin with, the company I was leased to said we had to get some fuel in Ill. so I ducked in there. People milling around (more so) dirty, run down. I guess in it's heyday, 50's and 60's, it was right near the slaughter houses, and the stench was overwhelming. Not sure if the slaughter hoouses are even there anymore, I doubt it, but they closed the truckstop in the 90's, I think. It became a wretched hive of scum and villainy ( Obi-Wan Kenobi). It was bad news. I'll try these pics.
http://hankstruckforum.com/htforum/index.php?topic=42490.0
https://www.flickr.com/photos/29821940@N00/9111443623/

 

I was there a few times. Wouldn't eat in the restuarant because the food was terrible and place was dirty. One time the waitress was only charging people for a grilled cheese sandwich, no matter what they ate because she said the meals were so bad.

Now here's a real winner : Naked City Truckstop, Roselawn, Indiana - waitresses let it all hang out.

Another good one : Pantyhose Junction, Dunnigan, CA

Google has info on both of these old truckstops.

 

[QUOTE="semi" retired;4372349]Hi navypoppop, 1st, welcome aboard. The best place I've found is Hank's Truck Picture's. The website is a little hard to navigate( Hank himself apologized to me, saying the site grew too fast) I think you have to sign up as a member, but the old time truck pics and truckstops are great. [/QUOTE]"semi" retired, tell us about your favorite truckstop, "Naked City Truckstop" where you used to "hang out."

 

Wow, let's see. Yeah, that Stockyards, people would "go missing" and turn up in spring when the snowbanks melted, there was another 76 on the south side off 94 and Hy. 6(?) I was afraid to get out of the truck there, but aside from Lake Mills, ( my hometown for 17 years) or that "Moasis" in Little Chute (Appleton) there was another truckstop in Green Bay, name escapes me( old age) I think it was a Standard, we used to hang out there when we were supposed to get together for a company safety meeting( there was nothing safe about what we did after the meeting) I usually stayed away from the big Truckstops, and like I say, the small mom & pop diners with big parking lots, we'd camp out there until some other buddies pulled in, woke us up,( after 18 hours on the road) we'd grab some coffee, and we'd all take off. Mercy sakes, we had ourselves a CONVOY! I've posted this before, but this was exactly the way it was (well, I don't remember the military) Look at all the cabovers. Wait, more coming back to me. There was/is a truckstop on the east side of Green Bay, off 172 and I-43, all the bull racks would hang out there (way in the back) There was plenty of hanky-panky that went on there, not me, of course (cough) Oh, there was a truckstop north of Green Bay on Hy. 41& 141 before they built that new scale at Abrams, there was a small DOT platform scale at the split, and we used to camp out there, waiting for it to close ( it was a pain getting around that one)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le2bPRGvKXE