Earlier, I posted about the prices I have seen in heating oil for our house.
For that, see: Our Heating Oil Prices Are Volatile.

Now, mom digs out old log books that my grandfather kept.
Lets take a look at what he was experiencing at the gas pump 50 years ago…

“I’ve just re-read an old Mileage Record Book that my dad kept. This little booklet was put out by Signal Gas “available in these 7 Pacific Coast states from Canada to Mexico”. For a most undereducated millworker, he did keep meticulous track of a lot of things.”

“He could fill it up, for example, with 10.9 gallons for $2.65 or 11.5 gallon for $3.22 or 9.8 gallons for $2.83 in Eugene in 1955. That summer he paid $3.05 for 9.1 gallon in Biggs Junction coming back from Canada. On Dec. 21, 1955 he bought 13.6 gallons for $3.94.”
Note: ( Chevron gas is $3.04 for a gallon in Eugene today.)

“I’ve no record of what wages of a pond man/jack of all trades/carpenter was then. It was very likely in the $3 – $4 hr range though.”
Some notes along the edges say “14 ½ miles per gallon”
“Average since Sept. 14 miles” “28 ½ gasoline, 31 ½ ethel” “@ 32 cents”

“They had the brown and ivory 1954 Plymouth station wagon they ordered new from the factory and flew back to Detroit to pick it up and drive it home. The surprising part to me is that they got only 14 miles to the gallon. The column headed Speedometer Reading (odometer?) shows 7,633 on January 4, 1955, and the mileage each time he bought gas, and ending Dec. 21, 1955 at 14,558 miles. A year later they’d gone 21,575 miles ,that’s about 7,000 miles a year.”