Courtesy TxDOT Archives

A Gulf filling station in Colorado City circa 1932. These early gravity-fed gas pumps with a clear cylinder on the top were called visible gas pumps. This style of dispenser used a hand-operated pump to move gasoline from a storage tank into the visible cylinder at the top of the pump. Once the cylinder was full, the customer would place the gas nozzle into the tank of the automobile. A valve on the pump would then be opened to allow gravity to feed gasoline into the tank. The amount of gasoline dispensed into the tank would be measured by the amount removed from the cylinder.