Service Station Changes Hands After 42 Years in the Family

CENTER POINT - Bill Hodges leans against a concrete block wall of the old 1930s-era service station as he chats with Kevin Rhinehart who sits in a chair just inside the garage and scratches his right knee.

"Since I was 16, until not too long ago," Kevin says, "I was working 60 hours a week. That's why my knees are so bad."

And that's why Kevin, 57, has closed Rhinehart's Service Station, cleaned out the building and sold it to Bill, 55, who lives a few houses away.

Come July 1, after Bill gets possession, he'll relocate his Southside Repair from Sixth Street SW in Cedar Rapids. Bill heard the station was closing a couple of months ago and walked down the street to work out the deal directly with Kevin.

"What I pay in overhead there, I got tired of it," says Bill who has been in business 19 years. "I've got a lot of people who say, ‘We'll come up.'"

In fact, he says, six customers have already made appointments for routine maintenance.

"It'll be the Southside on the north side of town," Bill jokes.

Local customers, Kevin laughs, can't wait until Bill installs a soda vending machine outside the station. As Center Point has grown the last 30 years toward I-380 to the southwest, the business district, including the grocery store and convenience stores, have migrated that way.

But, in the old days, this stretch of Franklin Street was home to service stations, among them the DX station that Kevin's father, Bill, leased in 1958 to established himself in Center Point. Bill had previously worked with his brother, Joe, and others in Cedar Rapids. And, in 1970, Bill moved up the street a couple of blocks to buy this station, which sold Skelly gasoline at the time.

"I started working at the DX with my dad when I was 13," Kevin says. "He taught me how to wash cars. We didn't have a carwash in town then."

Kevin worked Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

"At the end of the day, dad would come up to me and hand me a pile of dollar bills," Kevin laughs. "I felt I was rich."

Now, for the first time in 44 years, priorities have changed. Kevin will finally have Saturdays off. He's delivering parts for Barron Motors in Cedar Rapids.

But, the closing of the full-service station, which stopped selling its Texaco gasoline six years ago, comes with a price. For the first time in her driving life, Kevin's mother, Vera, 83, will not be able to have the oil in her car changed by a Rhinehart.

"It's especially hard for my mom," Kevin says. "She'd stop here four or five times a day."

Obviously, it'll be difficult for Kevin, too. He worked only part-time at the station for 15 years while he was a mechanic for the Linn County Secondary Roads Department. He returned before his father died in 1991.

"I wasn't an outgoing person as a kid," he says, "but this helped. Talking to customers. I'll miss them, Since I've been out of here five weeks, I've missed them.

But, his knees are better for it. And, probably, so is the rest of his body.

"I washed so many windshields here," Kevin laughs, "it's a wonder my shoulders are all right."