Bomber Gas Station

When I was a kid we lived in Seattle and would take trips to Salem, Oregon to visit my grandmother and uncles.  In those days there were no interstate highways, so my dad would drive us down US Highway 99 through Tacoma, Olympia, Centralia and a bunch of other small towns on the way to the Oregon border.

When we crossed into Oregon we continued down US 99 and eventually split off onto “99E.”  Well, 99E went through the community of Milwaukie.  I distinctly remember passing a gas station called “The Bomber” that had a B-17 bomber mounted above the gas pumps!  I don’t remember ever stopping for gas (that was when it was something like 25.9¢ a gallon!) but I still can see that big airplane in my mind’s eye!  On a website I was The Bomber had the highest volume sales of gasoline of any station at the time!

Recently, I drove to Salem to see a friend from high school and I purposely drove the slow 99E route and wondered whatever happened to the Bomber Gas Station.  To diverge slightly, a few days ago I saw a newspaper article about the Cowlitz Indian Tribe’s “Beaver Kit Cam” at the tribe’s beaver husbandry facility on the Cowlitz reservation in southwest Washington.  At the website there was a list of YouTube videos; at the top of the list was “Recovering B-17 “Lacey’s Lady”: Gas Station Bomber to Fly Again.” This is a 20 minute video about this very same plane I saw when I was a kid!

The plane is now at the B-17 Alliance Museum, Restoration Hangar, and PX, 3278 25th St. SE, Salem, OR. 97302

https://b17alliance.com/museum/

Here’s the link to the YouTube bomber video…take a look, I think you’ll enjoy it!  (Please note there may be an add at the beginning of the video that you can skip.)