In which year and country was the first filling station for gasoline established?

The first filling station was located in the city pharmacy in Wiesloch, Germany, where Bertha Benz (1849-1944), a German automotive pioneer and wife of Karl Benz, who designed the motor wagon, refilled her tank. She filled the tank of the first automobile on its maiden trip from Mannheim to Pforzheim in 1888. Shortly thereafter, other pharmacies sold gasoline as a side business. Since 2008 the Bertha Benz Memorial Route commemorates this event.

When Henry Ford started to sell his automobiles at a price that the middle class could afford in the United States, it resulted in a demand for filling stations. The world’s very first purpose-built gas station was constructed in St. Lous, Missouri in 1905. Then the first ’drive-in’ filing station opened to the motoring public in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on December 1, 1913. Prior to this, automobile drivers in the United States, pulled into almost any general or hardware store or even blacksmith shops in order to fill up their tanks.

In Russia, the first filling station appeared in 1911 and just three years later there were 440 filling stations functioning in major cities across the country.

In Brazil, the first ‘post de gasolina’ of South America was opened in Santos, Brazil in 1920. It was an Esso Gas Station, brought by Antonio Duarte Moreira, a taxi entrepreneur.