Pruitt’s last days of service are end of automotive era

Louisville’s last full-service gas station turning off pumps

The first time Rocky Pruitt went inside the old filling station at the intersection of Frankfort Avenue and Lexington Road, his mother carried him in.

He was about 6 weeks old, late summer of 1960, and his father, Elvin S. Pruitt Sr., had just been made the manager of the Standard Oil of Kentucky station there at the point in St. Matthews.

Over time, things changed.

The station used to be in fierce competition with the five or six other fullservice gas stations near the point. They all went away.

It seemed the one constant there was Pruitt’s.

Even as the oil crises of the 1970s hit and caused most stations to go to selfservice to reduce costs and save their customers a few pennies, Pruitt’s remained old school. Two of their three islands remained full service and even at the one self-service islands, mechanics made sure your car was working properly and you could see where you were going.

“It gave me a lot of confidence,” said Mike Hamilton, who is 83 years old and lives just down the road in Clifton and has been going there for gasoline for more than 20 years.

“They would always check under my hood, and my tires, clean my windshield, and fill up the tank. They knew me and knew my car,” Hamilton said.

It’s the type of service you used to be able to get in every neighborhood in the city.

In my neighborhood, there was a Sinclair Station that later became an ARCO, before it changed to the Dairy Kastle where you can get the best chili dogs in Louisville. And not too far away, near Preston and Eastern Parkway, there was a Chevron Station and a Texaco.

You had them in your neighborhood, too.

Near Pruitt’s there was Terry’s Texaco, Rawert’s Gulf, Chilko’s BP and a Marathon station.

There all gone now. Except for Pruitt’s.

And that’s about to change.

“I wanted to be the last great service station.” Rocky Pruitt

Owner of Pruitt’s full-service gas station

On Oct. 6, a mechanic there will do the last oil change, plug the last tire, top off the last antifreeze, do the last tuneup. A few days later, on about Oct. 13, Rocky Pruitt, who runs the station that was run by his brother before him and his father before him, will pump the last gasoline from the tanks.

And like the White Castle and St. Matthews Hardware that for years stood sentry nearby, and like all the other fullservice gas stations (not just at the point in St. Matthews but in all of Louisville) Pruitt’s Service Center will be gone.

“It was one of the tougher decisions I’ve ever made,” Rocky Pruitt said the other day.

The old filling station has been with him virtually his entire life.

The station, he figures, was built sometime in the 1930s. His dad, Elvin, took over as the manager on Sept. 16, 1960 – and a Pruitt has been in charge ever since.

When he and his brother were 5 or 6, they started working there, sitting on the grimy shop floor sorting buckets of tire weights into the correct sizes. “We thought we were doing big work.”

Rocky Pruitt pumped his first gallon of gas when he was 13.

“We all worked here in high school,” he said of himself and his brothers.

First it was a company store, then in the late 1960s, his father bought the franchise from Standard Oil. The family added four other filling stations to their holdings in the 1980s, which they closed one by one over the years.

Rocky Pruitt left the gas station business for about a decade to sell real estate but returned to help his brother, Tap, run Pruitt’s in 2008. He bought him out two years later.

“I wanted to be the last great service station,” Pruitt said.

And he was.

Rocky said he doesn’t think there are any other full-service stations in Louisville.

Johnny Cecil doesn’t either.

For years, Cecil pumped gas and fixed cars at his business on 8th Street downtown, but he stopped selling gas about a dozen years ago when he couldn’t buy gasoline wholesale any cheaper than Thorntons and Kroger and Walmart were selling it to drivers.

Now, he just works on cars there. Over the years, people have tried to buy the station from Rocky Pruitt. “Nobody wanted to pay what it was worth,” he said.

Finally, Axis Investments LLC came along.

“They wanted it bad enough.” Rocky Pruitt said Axis hasn’t told him what it plans to do with the property, but according to city of Louisville petroleum dispensing permits, the company owns several convenience stores around town, including a couple of Valero gas station/convenience stores.

A man who answered the phone at Axis Investments would not give his name and refused to say what the company plans to do with the property. “I’m going to decline to comment,” the man said.

Pruitt never even considered converting the old station to a convenience store. “Being in the business of selling lottery tickets, beer and cigarettes, I had no interest,” he said.

A few things in addition to price figured into his decision to sell, Pruitt said.

“I don’t like to lead with my Christianity, but I prayed about it a lot,” he said.

He struggled, weighing his personal interests against the needs of his customers, some of whom are elderly and disabled and really benefit from having someone to pump gas for them.

He’s had trouble hiring employees – going from 12 before the coronavirus pandemic to just seven now. He used to just manage the business and greet customers when they came in, but as of late, he’s found himself working the gasoline islands while his employees focused on car repairs.

“I’m the guy who takes up the slack,” he said.

And then there’s his own health. He had a scare last spring that kept him in the hospital for eight days.

What it came down to, he said, is he asked himself, “What’s going to happen to this place when I die?”

After the last car repairs are done, Pruitt said an auction company will come in on Oct. 9 and prepare to auction off 63 years of family history.

They’ll sell tools, signs, chairs and just about everything there.

There are signs above a couple of doors that say, “Elvin Pruitt” − Rocky’s dad who died in 1998.

“I’ll keep dad’s signs and a few knickknacks, you know, awards we have hanging on the walls, but that’s it,” he said. “I’ve got my memories, I don’t need a lot.”

He’s not sure exactly what he’s going to do after he shuts down the place – really hasn’t had time to think about it.

He’ll probably spend some time bowhunting on his small farm straddling the Breckinridge County-Ohio County line. The only trip he has planned is a Nov. 12 pilgrimage to Dallas to see his beloved Cowboys play the New York Giants.

On Oct. 28, he’ll turn over the keys and walk away from the place his mom first carried him into just about 63 years and a month and a half ago.

“Only time will tell if I made the right decision,” he said.

MATT STONE/LOUISVILLE COURIER JOURNAL Rocky Pruitt, owner of Pruitt’s Service Station, pumps gas at one of the full-service areas at his business. Pruitt is closing his business to retire. The iconic, full-service gas station was run by his father Elvin Pruitt and became a staple for St. Matthews residents and beyond.