Elk Photos


This is an ELK station from the Elk Oil Co., which was based in Orlando.
ELK was one of the many new brands of the late 50s/early 60s at a time
in Florida that new ones were popping up overnight. Elk probably operated
in a radius of about 100 miles (or less) from Orlando in the central part
of the state. They never got very big, probably no more than 15-20 stations tops.
Their stations were pretty bare bones, often with outside tanks as shown here,
and just a rather small nondescript office building, white with a bit of green trim.
Signage was mostly the double arm price signs with maybe the name ELK above the prices.
However, a few sites had these larger neon "ELK GAS" signs with the arrow and
2¢ Less.

This station was on the far south edge of Orlando on the Orange
Blossom Trail, which was the combined US routes 17/92/441. I'm not positive
what happened to them, but fairly sure Murphy Oil bought them and rebranded
the stations to SPUR. That probably happened in the late 70s, after the
"energy crisis" which hit Florida Private Branders hard.

Collectibles?? Forget it unless a couple of pump glasses have survived.
I know of no maps or oil cans and of course they were rather new to have globes,
although such were still in use by some older Florida brands at the time.

GOOD COLLECTING!!!!

Walt Wimer