YOUR BEAUTIFUL HOME

When Roger Shawgo was a child he got a toy replica of a gas station. He enjoyed playing with it, and when he grew up, he and his brother bought a Texaco gas station of their own. They operated it in Newport, Wash., for a couple of years in conjunction with a tire shop.

When they closed the station to focus on the tire store, Shawgo bought all the original signage from Texaco for $1. Thus began a collection that would one day need a home of its own.

Nestled behind the Foxwood Tea House, which he owns with his wife, Jeanine, Shawgo has erected a full-sized replica of a Texaco gas station circa 1950. His wife calls it his playhouse.

An original banjo-shaped Texaco sign, with its porcelain face still intact, towers next to the station. A Fire Chief gas pump rests out front while a BankAmericard sign hangs nearby.

An antique gas pump, with a clear case and visible interior, stands sentry near the front door.

“This pump was on our family farm and I used it to fill up the farm vehicles. It has sentimental value,” said Shawgo.

Opening the original glass-paned door, a visitor notices a sight familiar to many travelers in the ‘50s and ‘60s: the Texaco restroom keys dangling from banjo-shaped cards.

Under the keys rests a Coca-Cola sliding vending machine that still works.

Quart-sized glass oil bottles with metal spigots perch on a shelf behind the antique cash register the Shawgo brothers used in their station. Their cumbersome credit card machine sits next to the register.

An admitted packrat, Shawgo has finally found a place for his collection of Texaco memorabilia. A mannequin sports a pristine Texaco uniform cap and shirt. Display cases hold Texaco maps, vintage lubrication guides, patches, emblems and toy cars and trucks.

Shawgo painted a checkerboard pattern on the station’s concrete floor.

In the garage area he painted a roadway that travels from the floor and up the wall. “I always wanted to do that,” he said.

The gas station playhouse is quite a contrast to the lace and china of the nearby tea house, and that’s just the way Shawgo likes it. “My wife gets to do the tea house anyway she wants, but this is my domain. I can do what I want.”

And the old toy gas station? It rests in a place of honor in Shawgo’s playhouse.