History of Speedway
Marathon was an oil retailer centered in Ohio and active throughout the Midwest.
Speedway 79 was a gasoline chain based in Michigan for much of the first half of the 20th century. In 1959, Marathon, then known as the Ohio Oil Company purchased the chain and promptly converted its outlets to the Marathon brand.
As self-service gasoline was legalized in many states, Marathon decided to use "Speedway" (without the "79") at higher-volume self-service stations with convenience stores. The concept turned out to be one of the few bright spots for Marathon during this time, and quickly expanded this concept across Marathon's main territories across the Midwest and southeastern United States. Part of this expansion was through the acquisition of various other smaller regional gasoline station chains, including Starvin' Marvin, Gastown, Wake Up, Bonded, United, Cheker, Port, Ecol, and Value. These stations were converted to the Speedway branding.
Read more about this topic: Speedway LLC
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history and/or speedway:
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“Don’t you realize that this is a new empire? Why, folks, there’s never been anything like this since creation. Creation, huh, that took six days, this was done in one. History made in an hour. Why it’s a miracle out of the Old Testament!”
—Howard Estabrook (1884–1978)
“The improved American highway system ... isolated the American-in-transit. On his speedway ... he had no contact with the towns which he by-passed. If he stopped for food or gas, he was served no local fare or local fuel, but had one of Howard Johnson’s nationally branded ice cream flavors, and so many gallons of Exxon. This vast ocean of superhighways was nearly as free of culture as the sea traversed by the Mayflower Pilgrims.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)