Standard Oil Service Station 17 E. 3rd Street

17 East 3rd Street is a former gas and service station. The building is set back from the street in order to accommodate automobiles pulling into the parking lot from both streets. The brick building contains three bays and each bay has barrel clay-tile pent roofs along the public facing edge. Brick pilasters and internal parapet walls further define the bays. The east side of the building has a chamfered corner on its south end which is the main entrance to the building. This corner wall has an ogee-arch parapet with coping, and a circular medallion set into the wall below that reads "SERVICE."

John W. and Eva B. Moore leased the 100' Lots 11 and 12 to the Standard Oil Company of Indiana in 1933 for ten years, with the stipulation that Standard Oil was to operate a "Gasoline Service Station" with the privilage to erect and install buildings, driveways, curbing, and other equipment as needed for that use. 

Standard Oil was established in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller and Henry Fagler. Standard Oil became one of the world's first and largest multinational corporations, controlling nearly all aspects of the petroleum oil business. In 1911, the company was ruled as a monopoly in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, and forced to dissolve into thirty-four companies. Standard Oil Company of Indiana was one of these companies created and they focused on providing gasoline to the automobile market and became known as an innovator of the drive-through filling station.  

In 1949 Fern Miller, daughter of John and Eva Moore, became owner of the 17 East 3rd Street. Fern continued the lease with Standard Oil Company and leased the west 40' of the property to Verna Kelley, who was the proprietor of a cafe named the Sandwich Inn. When Fern passed in 1960 she bequeathed the property to "dear friends" John F. Stoskoph, Jr. and Keeta Stoskoph of Great Bend, Kansas. During that year Standard Oil assigned its lease to the American Oil Company. 

In 1966 the property was split into two parcels and the east 100' was sold to Lillian S. Malouff and the 40' was sold to Lillian's husband, Phillip F. Malouff. The American Oil continued their lease until 1968.