Ideal (Florida) Photos
Thrree views of a closed Ideal station on Alt. US 19, Tarpon Springs, Florida.
Station was about to be demolished when these photos were taken on Dec. 3, 2003.
From Robert Droz.
IDEAL was the main brand of the Carse Oil Co., an Orlando, Florida operation.
As far as I know, they started out in the mid-60s and might still be in
business. They actually had two brands as they also had a few stations
under the TIGER brand. Why two brands I don't know, as the TIGER stations
were mostly pretty good sites. Carse and its two brands got much further
out of Orlando, at least a 50 mile radius and maybe more. They had a string
of pretty good C-store sites that were probably company run and then some
independent C-stores that just had a couple of IDEAL pumps and nothing else.
At one time their headquarters were at 1700 Bumby Ave. in Orlando.
They never listed in the NPN fact books, so I don't know how many stations
they had, but would guess at least 25-30 or maybe more. I didn't see any on
my last visit to Orlando in 1995, but I did no driving around at that time,
just visited with an old navy friend and on the road the next morning, so the
brand could well still be around.
Walt Wimer
| TOP.....Seminole County on Florida 436. This road in southern Seminole county ran between Apopka and I-4 and then south into Orange County after crossing US 17-92. This station was somewhere between Apopka and Altamonte Springs, but not in either town. The photo was taken in January 1966, shortly before I returned here to western PA and was one of their early stations. The sign was no doubt locally made and I only ever saw 1 or 2 of these. (I think this was the first IDEAL station I ever saw, but can't be sure of that.) |
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MIDDLE.....Orlando in 1978. Pumper with at least 8 pumps with kiosk. The building in the back might have had a small C-store, but I think only snack machines, rest rooms and storage.
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| BOTTOM.....Narcoossee, Florida southeast of Orlando on Florida 15. Nov. 7, 1986. This area had grown a lot since the late 1950s and this was a brand new site with a full c-store and newer graphics on the sign and canopy. |