Hudson Photos
Hudson map scan from Dave Leach.
The above was discovered Sunday, Aug. 28, 2004, on the 800 block of
North Chester Street near Decatur Street in the wonderfully-named City of Oildale, California.
There is nothing but the sign standing over a sandy lot. HUDSON seemed to locate its stations
on trucking routes near major cities all across the US but was always rather sparsely distributed.
This location, then, would have served Bakersfield. Located about a mile east of the current 99 Highway,
but Chester is a main north-south thoroughfare of Bakersfield so perhaps the site did enough business in its day.
When was gas selling for 1.08 per gallon? Seems to me to be around 1979-80?
That would fix the time of this station's demise, by whatever means it happened.
HUDSON closed its Cushing, OK, refinery in 1982 and declared bankruptcy in 1985.
About 20 years before that, company founder Mary Hudson served as President of
SIGMA (Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers).
J. Eric Freedner