Jack and Phil and their service station

The building of the Coast Highway in the mid-1920s brought a need to service the automobiles that were expected to use the new highway.

This week we’ll look back at two partners who did just that.

Service stations were popping up all along this new highway to prosperity, and one of these was Jack and Phil’s Service Station, located at the corner of Sixth Street and Ocean Avenue (602 PCH) in Huntington Beach.

In the early 1920s, Jack Gorham and Phil Drane owned this gas station. The name of the station, it was said, derived from one partner, who was needed to “Phil ‘er up,” and the other, who needed to “Jack ‘er up.”

In March 1923, Warren J. Bristol bought out Gorham’s interest in the station and teamed up with Drane. This week we’ll look at the lives of these two men.

Drane was born in 1883 in the town of Blackburn, Mo., where he developed into a young man whom many in the town admired. As he grew older, Drane hit the dusty road and traveled across the country, stopping in Missouri, Ohio, Michigan, Kansas, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Arizona before coming to California.

While living in Detroit, Drane learned all about automobile repair, and he was soon teaching future auto mechanics how to keep the newfangled horseless carriages going.

When World War I came along, Drane became an instructor in aviation and auto electrical machinery at Fort Riley, Kans. He was later sent to France for 19 months as an aviation instructor and an engine specialist.

After the war Drane thought he would settle down in Hugo, Colo., but this was not to be, for behind Colorado’s famous landmark, Pike’s Peak, was the golden state of California and a new beginning.

Packing up his belongings, Drane arrived in Long Beach and met Katherine Richardson. The two were wed in June 1922.

With the opening of the great highway and the discovery of rich oil deposits south of Long Beach, Drane saw a promising future in the great city of Huntington Beach.

This same year he came down and purchased the Exide Battery Station at Fifth and Main streets.

A year later he sold this station to Robert “Bullets” Marshall and bought an interest in the station at 602 PCH.

Drane was a member of the local chapter of the American Legion, a member of the Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce and a charter member of our local Lions Club, which still continues to be an important part of our community.

Warren Judson Bristol was born on Dec. 22, 1886, in Fort Collins, Colo.

After finishing high school there, Bristol enrolled at Colorado State Agricultural College with the dream of becoming a civil engineer. While in college he made the football team, the Aggies, and helped the team win the Rocky Mountain Conference title twice.

Bristol had no interest in plowing the land, and in 1903 he left Colorado for California, stopping first in Salt Lake City and Reno, Nev. After arriving in San Francisco, Bristol went to work as a bellboy in San Francisco’s grand Palace Hotel. He also worked as a bellboy in the city’s Pacific Union Club.

During this time there was a great interest in raising sugar beets in this country, and so Bristol returned to his hometown of Fort Collins in 1908 to work for the Great Western Sugar Company. He quickly rose up the corporate ranks to become the company’s assistant factory superintendent.

The company transferred Bristol to its Sterling, Colo., factory, where he would meet his future wife, Jennie Brown. It didn’t take long for Warren to propose, and in 1914 the two were wed.

The company in 1917 again transferred Bristol, this time, along with H.A. Benning, to its Holly Sugar factory in Huntington Beach. Benning became the superintendent of the factory, with Bristol as his assistant.

When Bristol bought out Jack Gorham’s interest in the service station at Sixth and Ocean in March of 1923, he also bought the house next to it for his family.

Drane left the partnership early on, and Wayne Pickering replaced him.

Business and life were good for Bristol until Oct. 20, 1941, when he lost his beloved wife.

Almost a year later, he married Fern Wright on Sept. 27, 1942, in a Las Vegas ceremony, and they lived at 1009 13th St.

In October of 1948 a ceremony was held at Bristol’s Richfield station as Huntington Beach Mayor Jack Greer pumped the station’s four millionth gallon of gas.

Warren Bristol passed away on Jan. 9, 1958.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington Beach resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box 7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.

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