Gasoline at $.289 Per Gallon

Gart Palumbo posted this photo on Facebook recently, showing the price of gas in the late 1950s at $.289 per gallon. Between 1958 and 1965, Don Temple leased the land and operated a Standard Oil station at the southwest corner of Palo Verde Avenue and Spring Street. He bought the property from Irvine Land Co. in 1965. Temple passed away in 2013 and his family still owns the property, which was converted to a strip mall in 2006. He pioneered the first Southern California self-storage facility in 1968 at 3750 E. Spring St. [See Bits ‘n’ Pieces for details on a new book about Temple’s July 1992 flying voyage, “Round the World & Across Russia in 21 Days, 30 Years Later,” by air rally documentarian and author Michael B. Butler.]