by Carol Graham

05-09-05 Dramatic is a word Ethel Stone could use to describe the changes she has seen in the price of gas since she opened a gas station in August 1938. When she opened Torreson Oil, an independently owned business at 524 Gateway Drive, an attendant filled the gas tank, checked the oil and tires and washed the windows. The price of gas was 10 cents a gallon, plus tax. That was 67 years ago.
"In those days, we worked on a margin and could make money," Smith said.

Local gas stations were selling gas for about $ 3.15 a gallon, including the 23 cents per gallon state tax and 18.4 cents per gallon federal tax. Torreson Oil today is one of just a couple of full-service gas stations left in Grand Forks. For that service, Stone said, they charge one-tenth of a cent above the prices at competing stations. Stone has maintained that full-service tradition.
"It's nice to get the windshield washed when the weather is bad," she said.

”A little profit”
She sees the escalating gas prices as "a disgraceful hoax" tied to the oil companies and plans to drill in Alaska. She said station owners are not allowed to talk to one another to "set" or "fix" prices in a market. There is no formal agreement, she said.
"We drive around and check the prices."

"We need so much for expenses and a little profit," she said. "As the cost from the supplier goes up, we raise the price at the pump. In the old days, the price didn't vary much over a year."
"I could go to a convention and bargain with brokers for the coming year, and the price wouldn't go up more than a quarter cent in a year," Stone said. "Last night, it jumped 25 cents."

She said local stations buy gas from Dale's Petroleum, a Fargo broker who buys gas in bulk and then sells it to local dealers. That is a new development in the oil business, according to Stone, who used to buy directly from oil companies.
"Now, they don't want to bother with billing me for four or five loads a week. I could buy gas cheaper through Dale than through Ashland."

Pumped gas
Negotiating gas contracts was only part of Stone's responsibility as a station owner. She was 26 years old when she opened the Grand Forks Torreson station.
"I pumped gas for many years," she said.
To learn more about the business, in the late 1940s, she joined the Northwest Petroleum Association in Minneapolis, where she faced discrimination in an industry long dominated by men and big oil companies. In 1971, she became the first woman to serve on the board of directors. With nearly seven decades in the business world, Stone said she has no plans to sell the business that Bob Gilbertson has managed since 1961. He's worked at the station since 1950.

Stone has the gas and oil business in her blood. Her grandfather, Charles Klein, became the first independent oil jobber in Minnesota when he started selling gas in the early 1900s in Osakis, Minnesota.
Her mother, Lottie Torreson, founded Torreson Oil in 1923 in East Grand Forks and Stone sold that business in 2003. At one time, she also operated a station in St Cloud, Minnesota.