Abandoned Gas - Abel Convenience - Sheridan, CO

Abel Convenience was the last identity of an independent and abandoned gas station, in Sheridan, Colorado. Located at the intersection of South Federal Blvd. and West Radcliff Avenue, just north of the Englewood city border. Well, as of May, 2018, anyway...

This photo was taken in March of 2018, reflecting the price of gas when Abel closed. Which was in early 2014. The building had been sitting empty and deteriorating, for over four years now.

Abel Convenience, as seen on a Federal northbound drive-by, conducted November 6, 2016. Closed for at least two and a half years at this point. A bit weedy, but still looking decent.

Photo taken from about ten feet further south, on August 29, 2013. Abel Convenience was still open in 2013. And still featured the Phillips 66 shield logo around the property. 

Several years earlier, I would stop by this station once or twice a week. Not only was it on my way home from work in the morning, but it had very easy access points from the southbound lanes of Federal. 

I could be in and out quick, not having to turn against traffic to hit up a 7-Eleven. 

Like the one a few blocks to the north, at Federal and Oxford. Which was always busy, and had a small and difficult parking lot. Especially given the volume of traffic at Federal and Oxford. This was one of the least visited 7-Eleven's, in my typical Denver area stomping grounds.

I still miss that run down Platte Canyon Drive, to get to my 2005-2006 home. Of course at two lanes, it was unbearable if you were stuck behind someone believing that speed limits are too high already. Which was all too often.

From May 2005 to May 2006, I lived with four of my friends at "Cheryl's House". Located deep in the bowels of Littleton. Rent and utilities, split five ways, was nice and cheap. I had a lot of fun living here, but unfortunately that had to come to an end. Simply couldn't sustain a feasible Basement World there. Only had a walk-in closet sized room to sleep in. One twentieth of the Archives and one seventy-fifth of the baseball cards, simply wasn't going to cut it...

Although, a very convenient 7-Eleven was on the corner of Platte Canyon and Depew St. A few blocks away from "Cheryl's House", once you weaved around a web of suburban streets. If I would have turned to my right when taking this picture, you'd see it.

Business was fairly slow there, but according to "Cheryl" of "Cheryl's House", it was a lot busier years ago, when the South Platte Park Reservoir was at it's peak. To me, it was still a valuable resource. If for nothing else, those great $1.99 Ham & Cheese sammiches I used to pick up on my way to work.

Business had slowed so much that the 7-Eleven closed in the Spring of 2006, after 45 years at that location. I know that I still have this flyer in the Archives. If it could have been found easily, I would have scanned it. Should have done that years ago. This picture of it is terrible.

Not long after 7-Eleven closed, the Hogback BBQ & Grill opened in their space. Never ate there, but it's been open for well over a decade. That counts for something.

Occasionally, I had to buy more groceries than I could get at any of the local convenience stores. Luckily there was a 24 hour Safeway, just a few blocks west of "Cheryl's House".

7-Eleven didn't sell Safeway Berry Crackles...

After May of 2015, you couldn't even buy Safeway Berry Crackles from the Safeway at Ken Caryl and Pierce. This location was amongst a number of Denver metro area Safeway stores closed in 2015. The building would be demolished two years later. When we left for Minnesota, in May 2018, it was still a vacant lot.

But thanks to the Googles, you know what they built in place of the Littleton Safeway?

A 7-Eleven.

I guess that makes sense since that immediate area's other gas station, a mid-1980's style Conoco, closed and was demolished, many years earlier. I've already written about this place. In fact, it was one of my first stories I ever posted on this blog.

Bringing me back to Abel Convenience. Another gas station tied to that time in my life. Pleasantly surprised to see that the Googles Street View goes all the way back to October 2007, on the corner of Federal and Radcliff. 

Allowing me to see Abel's as the old U.S.A. Express! The gas station dressed up in this outfit during the year I was a regular customer. That one legged sign is different than the two legged one, seen in my pictures. There's also a concrete disk on the ground, up front, from where an even older sign was once planted. 

Googles also had a Street View of Abel's dressed up as Phillips 66 in 2011. The Phillips Shield Logo must be significantly heavier than U.S.A. Express, since the sign needed the stability of a second leg. They didn't remove the old concrete sign anchor yet either.

December 15, 2013. The last photo I took of Abel Convenience, before it closed.

Had I known it wasn’t going to be open for much longer, I would have stopped in to buy a pack of smokes for old times sake.

At least I would have taken a better photo.

Abel Convenience closed sometime in early 2014, but I don’t know which month or date.  

The next picture in my collection, was taken on August 17, 2014.

Work was being done by the sidewalk, but they weren't pulling the tanks out of the ground just yet.

Next door to Abel Convenience is Pupusas Tailor.

My first inclination was to pronounce the name as "Poo Poo Sauce", but I'm sure I'm not correct there.

Making a mental note that Abel's was officially closed, and more importantly, not boarded up, I made plans to stop by the property for a more detailed set of photos.

Choosing a nice partly cloudy morning of September 23, 2014, to wander around Abel's.

Abel's gas pumps were wearing white refrigerator boxes.

No one was fooled. We all know there's pumps under those clever covers.

Gas prices frozen in time, on the day the store closed. 

In 2018, those prices seemed ridiculous. In 2022, they'd be a relief. In saying this, I do not wish to hear anyone more's take on today's gas prices. Now, next week, or ever. We all have our opinions and theories, we've all voiced our concerns and biases, and I just don't care anymore. I have to drive so I have to deal with it. 

So do all of us. 

It sucks. 

So does life.

Look!

There's an abandoned gas station!

I was hoping they'd put the shunned and isolated diesel pumps inside a green refrigerator box.

Let's take a look at the Abel Convenience retail floor!

I do find it odd that the manager office has a window opening to the sidewalk. Usually the room where the money is counted is kept away from public view. But my favorite part of this picture is the desk still having the identifying-letter-for-assembly-stickers attached to the faces. The desk looks like it's fairly intricate, and likely took some time and effort to put together. I guess the final step of removing those little labels was just a little too much.

Oh, and that clock mounted into one of the panels of the desk, is just plain tacky.

Those windows are a bit too reflectory to get a decent picture out of.

Not sure what I was trying to accomplish here.

Retail floor with the vacated coffee and fountain drink area. Remembering a roller grill on top of that counter in 2005. I may be wrong, but I may have eaten a U.S.A. Express hot dog. I may still be digesting it...

The place was pretty small, so it wasn't far from the fountain drinks to the cooler. In case you like your carbonated caffeinated beverages in a more portable container. I know I do.

On the north side of the building, there a large circular Cash For Cans can. I get the concept, but this just looks strange and out of place. Not sure whose idea it was, or if it worked. But I don't think I saw another Cash For Cans can, anywhere around Denver.

The south side of Abel Convenience was entirely without a Cash For Cans can. 

Which concluded my September 23, 2014, Abel Convenience photo tour. I would have been happy with more clouds for these pictures. But I took enough for an accurate representation of Abel. Before it either became something else, or was removed from the landscape completely.

November 1, 2014. Well, I was in the neighborhood...

June 13, 2015. Nothing new to see. 

Beyond the For Sale sign, stuck to one of those refrigerator boxes.

My travels around the south Denver metro area, had me driving on Federal, 10 times or more during a typical week. So it was easy to keep an eye on all the nothing going on at Abel Convenience. Also not really needing Abel Convenience, because of the numerous similar options available nearby. 

My go-to south Federal convenience store, became the Conoco Mini Food Store, at Federal and Union.

(They do sell full sized food, in case you were wondering.)

October 4, 2015. Even when one half of the entrance doors are smashed apart, this place just had the right south Federal charm. Their coolers were kept nice and cold, and the price of smokes was lower than 7-Eleven. 

January 7, 2018. Now it's the Sinclair Mini Food Store, at Federal and Union. The whole building, including DJ Discount Liquor, recently had a minor makeover. Switching from a dingy white with red trim, to brighter white with green trim. Matching up with their brand switch from Conoco to Sinclair. 

Didn't matter, since our cars got their go juice from King Soopers, a few blocks south.

Thanks to the discounts provided by my handy SooperCard!

Back at Abel Convenience, there had been some recent action... 

The tanks and pumps were removed not too long before November 6, 2016. That was when I stopped in to take pictures of the changes to Abel. Still expecting the station to get demolished in favor of a new building on this lot. Highly unlikely that another gas station will move in here now.

I like the gravel filled trench, leading out to where the diesel pumps last were.

The canopy has some new damage at the bottom. Not too rusty though...

Looking at the store, across the weeding over, gas pumpless islands. There's my sun-made shadow taking this picture in the corner. I remember it being particularly cold and very windy that morning. Abel was at the top of a hill, so I suffered for my art that day.

As I said, I'm not sure when the tanks and pumps were taken out of the ground, but these don't look like fresh wounds.

It does look like shoddy work...

And what's with the leaving behind of only one panel from the refrigerator boxes?

Northeast corner of the lot.

I decided to take better pictures of the interior. Because I had a better camera.

Despite being closed for well over two years now, there were still a number of promotional posters on the windows. 

Rockstar Energy Drink Supra Boats Giveaway!

Wait, what's that in the fine print?

This promotion "Ends 11/31/12"!?!?! 

Not using calendars is EXTREME!!

Much better shot of the coffee counter. At least in this instance, I was glad to have the sun where it was.

Did a good job of lighting up a store with the lights turned off.

That chair was in the office two years ago!

I cannot speak of the step-stool's movement.

I do love the sales counter shots in abandoned gas stations. After serving a several year sentence at 99 Spillihp (and it's satellites), I like to see the conditions that others put up with, before their stations closed.

Tucked back in the corner by the ice free freezer, is a fully stocked rack of car magazines, by the office door.

ENHANCE!!

Guess I can't read the "display through" dates on any of the covers.

Heheheheh... One of them says "Race Cup"...

See! That chair is missing!

You'd think they'd want to use that chair to sort through those stacks of folders, by the window. Cool! the folder up front reads: "Gilbarco Veeder-Root". Nice to see Veeder-Root is still a thing. I remember the Veeder-Root machine in the back office at 99 Spillihp. (Here's the story of 99 Spillihp, part one and part two.) When the refinery called, you pushed a button and a print out of how much gas was in the tanks below, would print out on thermal paper. Then you told them how much you had.

Damn you Mississippi Transport!!

There also appears to be some sort of faint giant baby head, with really large eyes, cast over the office door. I have no idea what this is, and can only assume it's the ghost of Abel, haunting his old convenience store. Before Old Man Jenkins tears it down to build a freeway.

Hey look! It's the Cash For Cans can!

I think those cans are a little too large to get eaten by the Cash For Cans can. 

This thing just looks so ridiculous...

Find it funny that someone went through the effort of getting up that high, to paint the Abel Convenience sign with black, quickly gave up after making a couple of scribbles. Find it even funnier when I picture who ever did this, falling off the sign and shattering his pelvis on the pavement below.

That probably didn't happen.

Time to leave Abel alone for a while.

Think I covered everything going on here.

December 25, 2017. Happy X-Mess Abel Convenience!

This gas station a frequent stop for quick eats or smokes or whatever, on my way home from work in 2005 and 2006. Easiest place to get in and out of, between my job and "Cheryl's House", located in the southernmost reaches of Littleton. Not like I was going to cook something at 7am, with four roommates in the house, most of whom are trying to sleep. 

Now, let's say that I want something a little heartier than a microwave burrito or a donut for dinner...

Simply turn into Columbine Square Shopping Center, and a left into the Burger King drive thru! They'll flame broil up a couple cheeseburgers for me at 6:30am. Take them home and hide away in my little basement walk-in closet. Del Taco was a little further away, but they'd make a Del Beef Burrito, any time of day I hit the drive thru.

This former McDonald's, tucked away along the border of a residential area, was another source of fine dining during that year. But they wouldn't make me a McDouble at 6am... Recent Googles Street View shows this McDonald's covered up by plywood today. So if you're in the area, and want to know what that McDonald's looked like before the windows were sealed, check it out.

The Columbine Square Burger King closed and became a BBQ place, which later closed and became it's own fascinating case study in Urban Decay. As did the entire shopping center behind it. I've previously written about this Burger King, but I have yet to write about...

The Columbine Square Shopping Center. A particularly sad property that was abruptly shut down, with all remaining tenants evicted. The complex was then left to decay away for over four years, before a mysterious fire hastened the inevitable demolition. I heavily photographed the rapid decline of this place, ranging from graffiti to vandalism to arson, during those four years. That story will likely be very long...

Burger King's neighbor in the Columbine Square Shopping Center, used to be Dewey's American Grill, amongst other names. I don't recall any restaurant operating here much beyond 2008. This was also extensively photographed.

The Columbine Square Shopping Center was demolished in April of 2018. Just two months before we moved to Minnesota. I was very worried the entire complex would have stayed up until after we'd left, and I wouldn't get any pictures of it's removal. Making it a big long term story without an ending. I didn't want that. 

This corner of the Shopping Center used to house the Break Room. A bar/pool hall that I'd spent a fair amount of time at, dating back to 1997. Where you see the faint checkerboard tile on the ground, used to be where the dart boards were. While I haven't drank in close to two decades now, I have some fond memories of the Break Room. Pool, darts or pinball, they even had pretty good bar food. 

Like I said, being in town for the demolition of the Columbine Square Shopping Center was important to me. I needed that story to have an ending. A few weeks before the shovels gathered outside in the vast parking lot, went to work on tearing it down, I found the canopy had also been removed from Abel Convenience.

March 10, 2018.

Well, that warrants some further exploration...

Unfortunately, it was getting late in the afternoon, and daylight was fading. 

Too bad they couldn't find a rust-colored paint to match the tagging cover-up on the shed. The white is more obnoxious than the graffiti. (Which is usually the case...) I'm assuming the trailer belongs to the crew in charge of taking this place down.

Pump #9 was a diesel dispenser, on the south side of the station.

Now the light and flag were torn out and laid against the building.

And there's where it used to be.

And there's the scars left behind after removing all of the old gas lines and pump remnants.

Front of the building is looking like it's prepared for the inevitable.

The Inevit-ABEL! 

Get it!!

There it is in Black and Orange. Demolition permit. Issued March 7, 2018.

Get your pictures now, this place is gonna be gone soon!

All of the folders are gone, but comfy chair is back in the office.

And they still haven't taken the labels off the desk panels.

The ghost of Abel also appears to have left the building.

Behind the sales counter. Cigarette racks to your left, ice chest in front, but all of the automotive magazines have been removed from the corner.

Even Race Cup.

Blurry coolers and coffee counter, due to lack of light.

Gas pumps used to sit out there.

Yet another of my super-awesome and professional panoramic photos.

So well done that I bet you can't even tell where the two photos were fused together!

The sad old Cash For Cans can, looking even more beat up than in seasons previous.

Let's take a look inside the mouth of the Cash For Cans can. I'm not sure how this is supposed to work. I get that it's probably been deactivated for a decade now, and it looks like some significant piece is missing. 

Wonder it will be demolished with the rest of Abel Convenience?

Poor Cash For Cans can didn't even finish his last meal of 7up and a plastic spoon...

Last building shot from the opposite corner of the property.

Last Abel Convenience sign shot...

Oh, and one of the old sign anchor chunk of concrete.

Wonder how old this is?

Goodbye Abel Convenience, I just hope I'm able to time a drive by with the actual flattening of the building. Or at least a large left behind pile of rubble, if I'm late. With a building this small, you don't have much of a window before it's all gone. An even smaller building, a few blocks south would be my test.

The January 2016 demolition of EZ Money was caught just in time!

This old Taco Bell put up very little fight on it's way to becoming a parking lot for Way Back Burgers.

"When life happens, we're here."

No. Clearly, you're not.

March 26, 2018. No demolition yet...

March 31, 2018. Progress must have hit a snag with the city of Sheridan?

April 8, 2018. Still nothing...

April 22, 2018. Any day now guys...

May 15, 2018. Something is happening...

ENHANCE!

Oh, he's just peeing on it...

May 27, 2018. The pavement is being ripped up, but I'm moving out of state in four days, so I guess I will be missing the demolition of Abel Convenience after all. And that sucks. I've put in a great deal of time and effort into documenting this place and they don't even have the decency to tear it down in time so I can watch!

Bet it's knocked over on June 3rd, just to spite me...

So Laura and I moved to Minnesota and I pretty much forgot about Abel Convenience. Knowing it would eventually become a story on here, but since it didn't have a proper ending, I wasn't nearly as enthused about it. 

Meanwhile, back in August, 2022...

Curiosity over any sort of progress at the Columbine Square Shopping Center, I dialed up the Googles Street View, at Federal and Belleview. The entire shopping center-less land looks pretty much as vacant and empty as it did in May, 2018. So no, nothings happening there yet. 

Using the street view to take a brief virtual roadtrip around that area, It hit me that I should see what they built in place of Abel Convenience.

June, 2019. (Photo courtesy of the Googles Street View.) Well, the old Abel Convenience wasn't demolished after all. That loud orange permit was only a tease. The new South Federal Mini Mart opened in October, 2018. They got rid of selling gas altogether, cleaned up the property a bit, painted the store and there you go!

Here's an updated Googles Street View photo from July, 2022.

The Cash For Cans can still lives on!

Now it's dressed up like a giant Pepsi.

And that's kind of cool!

But what's that on the far left of this picture?

ENHANCE!!!

The old sign anchor has still not been removed.

Wow...

******

I recently found out that the Denny's in Englewood, Colorado, has closed.

The end of July was the end of them.

Photo from March 22, 2015. 

The closing of this particular Denny's was a big loss. Even though I haven't been in Englewood in over four years now, the Englewood Denny's was significant to my time in Colorado. From all the late night, post drinking breakfasts with the Azzip Tuh crew, to the boothrotting days of 2005-2006. Late night Englewood Denny's was always an experience.

I'll let this brief excerpt from Wasted Quarter issue 59, "Bottomless Pot of Wasted" paint the picture of a particular late night at the Englewood Denny's:

Twine Ass

Moving on to environmental issues, bar rush has ended and Denny’s is down to a couple of tables in addition to mine, and a local loony that has been in the booth in front of me for a couple of hours now. He’s an old guy carrying a blue backpack. It took him over 45 minutes to order, and he’s been wandering around the restaurant ever since. Outside for long stretches. Disappeared in the men’s room for almost as long. Last time I went in to piss, the whole room reeked of shit. Musty old man shit was smeared all over the seat. Taking inventory of the people currently in attendance leads me to conclude it was him. Well then, he just explained to the waitress that cheese didn’t agree with him. He later whined that his pancakes had been tossed out while he went missing, despite them sitting at his table untouched for over an hour. She brought him new ones. Now he wont stop talking about a stolen bike. We get it... Bike Thieves... Shut up about the damn bike. “Hey buddy, that Tiger Woods won that golf tournament...” I totally do not care about Tiger Woods or golf at all. Leave me alone, I’m writing. Oh Christ, I’m starting to be able to smell crazy old guy shit from where I’m sitting...

This place needs a Walt.