Abandoned Gas - U Pump It - Lakewood, Colorado


Since my last gas station story was such a hit, let's fill up again at U Pump It Gas!


Located just a few short blocks east of Dave's (old) house on Eaton. If you drop by, Dave hasn't lived there for about 10 years. So he likely wont answer the door...


His cool aquarium has been moved from the basement as well... 

When Dave lived here, I hung out at this house a lot. I also frequented the businesses in the neighborhood. Such as Tamale Kitchen for a greasy burrito... Or the gas station on the corner of Mississippi and Sheridan, that exploded too many times, so a non gas dispensing 7-11 was built in it's place.... Coincidentally, no explosions!


But this is about a different gas station... To be specific, the former U Pump It Gas station, at Mississippi and Depew in Lakewood, Colorado. U Pump It had several gas stations around Denver that looked like -or very similar- to this. They were beyond simple, and I'm assuming the name comes from backlash against the "full service" gas stations of an earlier day.

No one wants They Pump It...


I do not know when U Pump It became No Ones Pumps It, because I'm rarely in this area these days. However that changed last Summer when I spent a lot of time just a few blocks away, where we shot the My Buddie pilot episode. (Go watch it... Someone needs to...) As I was driving to the set one day, I took the old back roads that I used some 10-15 years ago, and I found that nobody pumps at U Pump It anymore...


The station was now blocked off by an impenetrable orange mesh plastic fence. The pumps, underground tanks and awesome 1960's inverted J lights were all gone...


I had plenty of time before I had to be at the My Buddie set, on September  25, 2016. And if I was late, these pictures would be worth it...

So go take 15 minutes of your time and give it a view... If it causes you to be late for something important, don't worry, it will be worth it!

Come on, Dave is even in My Buddie!


No one was around, and it was early on a Sunday morning, so I decided to park the car across the street. From there, I could walk around the property, and get some pictures of U Pump It, before it was likely demolished.


I would have liked to have gotten pictures of the place while it was more intact. The ancient gas pumps previously here begged to be photographed.... But I missed out on that opportunity... The more I looked around, I thought the place might be saved, and had been closed up for renovation instead of removal.

Maybe someday again, at this very spot, someone will pump it?


Looking across the angled lot, toward Mississippi avenue. 

The pumps were spread across the front, where the hole is now. The damn sun kind of ruined this picture... I should have used a different setting...

However, I do like the pile of sawn off "don't hit that!" poles, piled up against the pipe barricade.


Side view of the building. Once I got close to it, I noticed the fresh coat of paint recently applied. From all appearances, this confirmed the building was being saved. And that's a good thing...

But what does it look like inside?


Hmmmm... It looks old... And not very friendly... 

But if you look really close, you would see that 12 packs of Pepsi are on sale for $3.99. The bad news is, they are currently out of stock. Of everything...

And if you look even closer, and find a way to add a bunch of pixels to this image, you can see a very blurry me in the window reflection on the cooler doors.

I also like that the orange bucket says: "Let's Do This!" on it. I realize that's a Home Depot slogan (and likely bucket), but it still seemed cool in this setting...


And that's really about it... 

There it is... 


U Pump It looks like it was cool in that crusty old gas station sort of way,
but nothing too monumental...


The last time I drove by (which would have been October 1st, 2016, the day we wrapped shooting My Buddie), the building had not reopened, but had been painted a gaudy bright red. As of then, no outward indications on weather this was going to be a new gas station, or retail, or restaurant or waterslide...

And it was apparently too big of an inconvenience for me to drive by it again over the next year, in order to confirm what U Pump It was going to be...


So, I have no idea... Maybe you can?

******

I really dropped the ball on getting new stuff up here during my four day weekend. I'd planned on scanning some cards for stories I'm working on, and before I knew it, I had scanned over 500 9 card album pages. Just kept finding more I needed as I went... At roughly a minute per scan, that chewed up a massive portion of my time off...

(And I have barely begun editing them in Photoshop...)

On the bright side, that provides a ton of images for upcoming stories. So I will save time there...












And in case you missed the link...



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