By Michael Karl Witzel ©2007-2008

During the twilight of the fifties, the Englander Company manufactured a commercial sleeping slab with a mechanical vibrator at its core. One of their top salesman, John Houghtaling (hotel-ing), peddled the unit to customers in the lodging industry. When a number of clients complained that the buzz-boxes were burning out, he took it upon himself to find out why.

The Magic Fingers Control Box

For almost two years, he conducted a relentless campaign of under-the-bed research. Mattresses were dissected, bedsprings analyzed, and motors monitored. After disassembling the mysterious motion transducer and studying its intricate workings, he discovered that “there wasn’t much to it.” Inside, what was initially perceived as a mechanized marvel consisted of nothing more than a simple electric motor with a small counterweight attached to its driveshaft.

Houghtaling began to tinker on his own and soon devised a much more reliable version. It was small, powerful, and a snap to replace. Best of all, his visionary design had a specific advantage over the existing competition: it could easily be mated with any mattress. Now, anyone handy with a screwdriver could install one of these new massagers—right to the inside of a bed’s box spring! An quad arrangement of special, grooved mounting posts made easy work of attaching the vibro-module between the cushioning coils. The inventive Houghtaling even patented the unique design approach.

Sampling the subtle waves of relaxation emanating from his reconfigured recliner, he coined the phrase “Magic Fingers” and set upon the task of marketing it to the masses. Sales representatives from across the country were recruited in a loose franchise arrangement. For an investment of $2500, would-be dealers received eighty of the vibrator units, three days of training, and audio-visual materials. After that, it was the dealer’s responsibility to locate potential customers, handle installation, facilitate repairs, and finally—collect the sacks of coins accumulated at the end of each month.

A compact control head (attached by wire) held the loot and activated the magical oscillations. Bolted down securely (in later years) to the night stand, it served as both a pay receptacle and housing for the timer. When sleepy overnighters dropped one quarter into the coin meter, it tripped a mechanism—allowing fifteen-minutes of operation. The setup worked without a hitch for a number of years until basic honesty went the way of the dodo. Suddenly, anyone and everyone (including some motel employees) began breaking into the coin meters to help themselves to the proceeds!

John J. Houghtaling Canadian Patent Drawing, circa 1962

For the hapless distributor, the resulting losses could be quite substantial. During the heyday of Magic Fingers mania, over 250,000 units were buzzing along at both the independent and major chain accommodations … nationwide. With an average of eight quarters brought in by each unit during the time span of one month, an entrepreneur maintaining a few hundred vibrators could pull in a considerable chunk of change. Since Houghtaling didn’t demand royalties, top salesman could make a good living.

By the 70s, an aggressive attempt was made to thwart the pilferage by employing magnetic stripe technology. Room renters received a card from the desk clerk during check-in that could be credited with incremental amounts of time. Back in the privacy of their rooms, a modified control head read the debit card and activated the Magic Fingers. Unfortunately, costs to continually upgrade the system to reflect the latest technology were prohibitive. Card readers that were initially “high-tech” were quickly rendered obsolete by the fast pace of progress.

Eventually, coin theft became such a problem that Houghtaling couldn’t sell distributorships with a clear conscience. Somebody would set up business and effectively go broke in just a few months. But the Magic Fingers wasn’t licked yet: In the early eighties, the General Stamping and Manufacturing Company of Hialeah, Florida acquired rights to the gizmo and began marketing it to residential customers. While demand from the motel industry waned, seniors remembered the therapeutic gadgets from their cross-country journeys and eagerly purchased them for home use (without coin meters).

Today, fully functional models of the venerable Magic Fingers mattress can still be discovered—and enjoyed—at a smattering of tourist courts, cabins, and no-tell motels on the retired routes of Highway 66. Along with “refrigerated air” and “a television in every room,” Houghtaling’s shimmying shaker has found a place of permanence in the pop culture of the American road. And, oh yeah … has anyone got change for a dollar bill?

By Michael Karl Witzel ©2007-2008

What do McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Denny’s, Arby’s, Roy Rogers, Taco Bell, Jack-in-the-Box, and Kentucky Fried Chicken have in common? All have their distant origins in the diner, that unsung institution of roadside America that began over one-hundred years ago, decades before there were automobiles, drive-thru ordering windows, milkshake mixers, and remote-controlled speaker boxes.

Invention of the American Diner

The precursor to the fast food eatery began in 1872 when Walter Scott, a myopic pressman for the Providence Journal (and one-time street vendor), became serious about selling food and refreshments in the streets. That year, he abandoned the security of his job and swore to dedicate his life to street vending. “I decided that I’d quit other work altogether,” he revealed to a Providence Journal reporter. “I figured I could build a good trade in a little while … and make a decent living out of it.”

Friendly Counter Service, Interior Counter Scene, and White Castle

Scott had the moxie to make it work, along with an unheard of plan: instead of wearing out the soles of his shoes and roaming the streets of Providence, Rhode Island, he decided to buy a horse drawn delivery van. Rolling on four wagon wheels, he would take his food to the people.

His wheeled pantry caught more than its share of onlookers: on each side of the rig, Scott hacked out a rectangular opening! Through what may have been America’s first “walk up windows,” he fielded orders and served the passersby with a simple fare of egg sandwiches, coffee, and pie.

It proved to be the perfect setup. Scott prepared the comestibles at home, packed them into the van, and trotted around Providence to secure the top sales location for the day or night. When foot traffic thinned and business waned, all he had to do was hitch up his horse and roll off to a more profitable street! For a vendor selling food in the urban environment, this was the best possible configuration for sales.

Scotty's ©2008 Gabriele

A Welcome Alternative to Sit Down Fare

The roving lunch wagon format was welcomed by customers, too. At the time, most American cities were ill-equipped to handle workers who desired a quick bite to eat … at a reasonable price. A few city hotels featured lavish sit-down restaurants, but these were hardly a practical choice for the working man on a budget. Like most of the other fine eating houses, the prices were exorbitant and the atmosphere tailored for the more affluent, well-heeled clientele.

Of course, there were a few bars and nickel dining houses where men of toil could go elbow-to-elbow with crowds of drunken men to wolf down a plate of grub. At many of these dives, the patrons were privy to a free lunch, as long as they purchased a drink or glass of wine. Not surprisingly, it was an uncivilized way to get a meal. One writer of the age described the method of dining as one of “gulp, gobble, and go!”

Besides the lack of atmosphere, the drinking buffets had limited hours and only offered their spreads at noon. After dark, getting a bite to eat was difficult since most bars didn’t offer food and the low-budget hash houses closed for the night. Even the high class eateries shut their doors after the dinner hour. For these reasons, late-night workers were destined to go hungry unless they brought along their food from home.

It’s no surprise that Scott’s late-night lunch wagon became a friendly beacon in the dark. Before long, his wagon was a regular haunt for hungry insomniacs, red-eyed carousers, municipal workers, cab drivers, deliverymen, trolley car conductors, policemen, and even the well-to-do. After Scotty took up residence in front of the Providence Daily Journal offices, former co-workers and friends became devoted fans. Here was the paradigm for streetside dining … based on service, speed, and quality.

The Lunch Wagon Asserts its Domain

With all that it had going for it, it didn’t take long for other entrepreneurs to take notice of Scott’s operation. A Providence policeman by the name of Ruel Jones was the first to copy the setup, with one major difference: he hired a local wagon maker to build a custom unit equipped with a serving shelf! Lunch wagons were improving.

Chili Bar-B-Q Lunch (Photographer: Arthur Rothstein, Library of Congress)

Ruel’s cousin, Samuel Messer Jones, was the next to gain prominence in the trade. He started out small and saved up the $800 he needed to design and build a lunch wagon that allowed the customers to stand inside to eat! His “distinctive night lunch wagon” was built with fine woods and adorned with ornate etched glass windows. With Sam Jones’ entry into the business, the level of lunch wagon beauty raised up a notch.

Around the same time, a hopeful street salesman by the name of Charles Palmer got the idea to work the shift after Jones closed his own operation down. Palmer thought that the night was a great time to sell food and reasoned that there “were a lot of people going to the theater, to square dances and sewing bees, drinking in the saloons, and so on … who had to go home sometime.” While on their way to their humble abodes, he planned to feed them and rake in the after-hour profits.

Indeed, the late-night clientele was plentiful and by 1891, Palmer made history when he took out America’s first patent for a lunch wagon! Although lunch wagons were a regular sight on the city streets, not one operator had the vision to register their design! He went on to do quite well in the streetside dining trade and contributed many innovations to art of wagon design, gaining notoriety by building “lunch wagons of every description, made to order.”

Enter the “Original Lunch Wagon King”

However, Palmer didn’t etch his name into the history books as the sandwich man who dominated the early American diner trade. Nor did Scott, or even Jones. The title of “Original Lunch Wagon King” was reserved for Thomas H. Buckley, a former janitor and cook who worked his way up from relative obscurity to gain widespread prominence in the lunch wagon business. His claim to fame and way to fortune were the famous eateries known as “The White House Cafes,” a line of gleaming wheeled wagons that lent a respectable image to the trade and pulled the industry further away from its somewhat working-class, beanery image. The homemade wagon was definitely seeing the last of its days.

The Owl Stamp

In all respects, Buckley’s Cafes set the new standard for beauty: the windows were frosted, made of blue and red flash glass, or etched with the portraits of past presidents Washington, Lincoln, or Grant! The exterior walls were painted a bright, titanium white and then decorated with ornate paintings depicting famous events in history. Inside, fine finished woodwork and brass fittings raised the bar of comfort. Buckley took the basic concept, added a touch of luxury, and kicked the trade into a new realm.

By 1910, Buckley’s beauties helped to establish the lunch wagon as a permanent part of the city scene. And what a scene it was: with its densely populated towns, the New England region became a hotbed of lunch wagon construction. As fast as they could, manufacturers like Wilfred Barriere, Albert H. Clossen, P.J. Tierney, and the Worcestor Lunch Car Company began turning out compact, mobile restaurants.

Meanwhile, electrical power gained a foothold. A number of towns began taking their horse drawn trolleys out of service to replace them with electrically-powered units. As trolley companies scrapped old cars, they caught the eye of men who were out to make a fast buck in the diner biz. The idea was simple: buy a few of the junked cars at bottom dollar, outfit them with a small stove and other equipment, and sell them as cheap lunch wagons. For those who couldn’t afford a costly Palmer or a Buckley, it was a quick way in. Soon, a raft of these trolley lunches joined other diners in the street and things got crowded.

Birth of the Stationary Diner

With all of the horse drawn delivery wagons, hansom cabs, and lunch wagons rolling about, established cities implemented laws to ban the food carts. Others imposed restricted hours of operation. As the rules tightened, any operator who wanted to remain in business had to find a permanent location and set down roots. As the dust settled, electrical lines, sewer pipes, and solid foundations replaced the wagon wheels. The stationary diner was born!

Once the diner found its equilibrium, the industry took off faster than a burger patty sliding across a griddle. Three major diner makers emerged and formed the basis of the American diner industry: At the top, the Worcester Lunch Car Company earned a fine reputation with lunch cars of wood and porcelain panels. Diner maker P.J. Tierney pioneered comforts such as the indoor toilet. Irishman Jerry O’Mahony added a new sense of class to diner architecture.

During the 1930s, prefabricated diners reached the height of roadside design when manufacturers built beautiful, streamlined structures. J.B. Judkins produced a curvy model called the Sterling Streamliner and even the Worcester Lunch Car Company came out with a fast, angle-ended building. Suddenly, roadside restaurants looked faster than the car customers they served!

Over the next twenty years, diners kept pace with the tremendous growth of the automobile industry and by the 1950s, the diner was no longer the tiny vending wagon it once was. Now, it was a big, full service restaurant! Draped in stainless steel panels and decorated with multicolor bands of neon tubing, motorists recognized it as a solid symbol of American enterprise.

Yes sir, when the public was in the mood for a simple meal that they could purchase at a fair price, they patronized diners. While there was increased competition in the form of drive-in restaurants (with their carhop service) and later walkup fast food stands, the diners managed to hold their own—especially along the East Coast.

Fast Food Overtakes the Diners

Unfortunately, the regional loyalty enjoyed by the diner was not enough to sustain the format nationwide. With the speed of cars and pace of life increasing, people were in a big hurry to work, play, and eat their meals—preferably—in the front seat of their cars. The very idea of leaving one’s vehicle to sit down in a cramped diner booth wasn’t as attractive as it once was. The front seat was America’s new dining room and like it or not, speed became the new creed. Quality was on the way out.

The Diner, April 1950 Cover

When America’s diners could no longer compete with the proliferation of budget burger bars and prefabricated food, they slowly retreated. Established diners entered a sustaining mode and hung on with their fingernails. As the nation entered the 1970s, many of our nation’s diner men cloaked their buildings with wood or brick to hide their identity (perhaps their judgment was affected by the crazy disco beat). Suddenly, diners were viewed as greasy spoons and thought of as a liability rather than asset.

As some operators sold out and closed their doors, many took to the challenge and remodeled. Some adopted the architectural leanings of the day and built diners in the Colonial style. Functional structures were passé. It seemed like restaurateurs wanted to copy the Howard Johnson’s look and make the roadside over to appear as it did during those frowsy days of antiquity.

Meanwhile, a few of the diner men took the outer image of their diners over the top with decorative embellishments. Suddenly, the once classy roadside appliance that was the diner emerged as a monument to Grecian style. On the opposite end of the spectrum, those who saw the future took off with the space age Jetsons styling that the remaining diner makers were currently offering.

To the diner aficionado, it seemed that the stainless steel dream of the American diner was degrading into a nightmare, that is, until the aging masses of baby boomers suddenly rediscovered the magic of sitting on a stool, eating a blue-plate special at a counter, and playing their favorite fifties tunes on their own jukebox controller.

A Nostalgia For Diners Emerges

Suddenly, enthusiasts were writing about diners, painting pictures of them, restoring them, and spreading the gospel of real diner architecture and inexpensive comfort foods! When the movie “Diner” hit the theaters, audiences recalled the magic of their teenage years and sought to relive the days of their favorite diner booth. Ever so slowly, the diner made a pop culture rebound and suddenly, they were “cool” again.

Today, the restaurants that began as simple, horsedrawn lunch wagons have seen a grand resurgence. Diner manufacturers like Kullman Industries, DeRaffele, Diner-Mite, Starlite, and more are fielding a multitude of orders for new diners. Many original diners are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The mom and pop eateries that have survived the lean decades are basking in the glory of the reawakening, too. Customers are returning, and old classics are seen regularly in television commercials, motion pictures, and print advertising.

As fast food quality continues to wane and customer service falters, America’s fast, friendly, accommodating diners are taking up the slack. Ask anyone in the diner industry and they will tell you that “The report of the diner’s demise has been greatly exaggerated!” In the same spirit of Walter Scott’s first lunch cart, they occupy a place of prominence along the great American roadside and are ready, willing, and able to serve well into the new millennium. Nothing could be finer than eating breakfast, lunch, or dinner in an American Diner!

Article text and images ©2008 Michael Karl Witzel, All Rights Reserved.

The American Diner

Please email the author for reproduction permission.

If you are a fan of diners and other roadside eateries, be sure to look for Witzel’s book, The American Diner (Motorbooks Stock Number 127144AP, Hardcover, 10” x 10” size, 160 pages, 50 b&w illustrations, 150 color, $29.95).

This title is currently being reprinted in a paperback edition, but original hardcover copies can be found here on Amazon.com.

By Michael Karl Witzel ©2007-2008

Tokheim Moneymaker

Americans drive more than 2.5 trillion miles per year in cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles—a distance equal to 14,000 round trips to the sun! To rack up this amazing mileage, the U.S. motoring market consumes 146 billion gallons of gasoline every year.

With so much refined petroleum being bought and then pumped into the tanks of cars, one might conclude that the American motorist is entitled to a quantity discount. Unfortunately, today’s commuter holds no such influence. The prices at the pumps are outrageous and continue to climb. In many regions, consumers shell out an average of three to five dollars for every gallon of gas.

What do we get for our money? Only the refined liquid, along with the privilege of dispensing it into our own automobiles. For good or ill, the gasoline station in America has adopted a business model that is defined by speed and self-service. Much to our chagrin, the present-day definition of “convenience” means do it yourself.

For this reason, today’s self-reliant automobile owner is burdened with a growing list of car-care responsibilities. In addition to pumping our own gasoline, we must check the level of motor oil, top off the radiator with water or anti-freeze, clean the windshield, change out worn wiper blades, replace dirty air filters, and keep our tires inflated to the correct air pressure. Never mind that it costs an extra seventy-five cents to extract air and water from a vending machine! That’s another story.

Travel back in time fifty years and you will quickly discover that the scene at the American service station was dramatically different than it is today. The most obvious difference? The price of gasoline. While economists argue that today’s cost per gallon is well in line with inflation and the current cost of living, there is really no denying that refined motor fuel was a good deal cheaper in 1955, no matter how you pump it.

Once upon a time in America, fuel efficiency was not an issue. Our highways were packed with the biggest behemoths that Detroit could build—chrome-plated, fuel-injected, 283 cubic inch gas guzzlers. With an attitude typical of Alfred E. Neuman, owners of Ford Country Squire station wagons, Chevy Nomads, Buick Roadmasters, and other highway cruisers were unfazed about how much it cost to feed their greedy, four-barrel carburetors. “What, me worry?” Gas was plentiful … and cheap!

As miles of virgin tarmac unrolled to service the growing legions of Motor City steel, filling stations proliferated. By 1969, there were 239,000 gas stations in America (today, the total is less than 100,000).

Pump-a-rama ©2008 Witzel

The resulting competition caused a street-side scramble, leading many American petroleum peddlers to adopt the tenets of “programmatic” architecture. Based upon the clever idea of combining both a building and a billboard into a single, eye-popping structure, this mimetic style of construction became the ideal motif for myriad roadside businesses—gas stations included.

Station owners eagerly adopted the format and almost overnight, the roadsides were transformed. From the 1920s and on, fantasy facades festooned the American roadscape with visual whimsy. Along well-traveled corridors nationwide, gas stations shaped like airplanes, castles, Chinese Pagodas, dinosaurs, icebergs, light houses, tea kettles, teepees, and windmills made filling up the family flivver a lot of fun.

As it turned out, morphing the gas station’s appearance proved only partially effective in grabbing attention. Equally important was how people perceived the product being sold. This was demonstrated during the 1920s, when tall “visible register” pumps allowed customers to see the gas they were buying. High atop the pump, a clear glass cylinder displayed the fuel before it went into a car’s tank. To differentiate between grades of gasoline and to enhance sales, companies like Gilmore colored their fuel, as they did with their “Blu-Green” brand.

Back in the “good old days” of gasoline, Petroleum refiners captured the public imagination by enlisting friendly mascots, too. The Brontosaurus affectionately known as “Dino” trotted onto the scene during the 1930s, boosting sales for Sinclair gas. In 1959, Humble Oil put a friendly face on it’s fuel with the stylized image of a tiger and the slogan, “Put a Tiger in Your Tank!” Standard Oil Company of New York’s (later Mobil’s) “Flying Red Horse” also grabbed its share of eyeballs: Affixed to buildings and sign poles, the neon Pegasus blazed a crimson trail across the sky and branded itself into the hearts and minds of motorists.

But the affable nature of yesterday’s gas station was defined by more than personable mascots, wacky architecture, and cheap Ethyl (the first brand of no-knock, leaded fuel). It was the employee known as the gas station “attendant” who established a real rapport with the public, demonstrating first hand the art of personalized customer service. His or her mission was clear: refill customer’s fuel tanks, act as a tour guide, provide maintenance advice, and front as a good-will ambassador for the oil companies.

U.S. 1, N.Y. Ave., Washington DC, Circa 1940

To this end, pump jockeys of the gas station’s golden age actually looked like they cared. Sporting a crisp uniform—complete with a bow tie and five-point hat—the typical attendant rushed out to your car after the “ding-ding” of the driveway air hose signaled your arrival. After that, it was full service all the way. Attendants “wiped the windows and checked the oil,” inflated your tires, and made doubly sure that your car was road worthy and safe to drive. Indeed, the memorable Texaco ad slogan, you can “Trust Your Car to the Man Who Wears the Star” was more than advertising hype.

Fifty years ago, gas station attendants worked diligently to earn our trust. They used every promotion they could think of to hook in anyone who might buy a gallon of gas. Giveaways played a big part in winning over—and keeping—customers. In exchange for their loyalty, gas station visitors received goodies such as foldout road maps, drinking glasses, dishware, calendars, collectible coins, car washes, matchbooks, trading stamps (remember S&H Green Stamps?) and a multitude of other fun freebies.

Clamoring in the back seat to latch onto the latest giveaway, kids loved filling up, too. And why not? Station owners took pleasure in handing out trinkets to future customers. Coloring books, comics, coin banks, stuffed animals, stamps, buttons, pens, lollipops shaped like station logos, and other gee-gaws were the stuff kid’s dreams were made of.

Unfortunately, the passage of time has all but erased the memories of how enjoyable it once was to fill up at the service station of old. Now, foreign imports and fuel efficiency dominate the street. The station attendant has evolved into a cash register attendant and friendly mascots have been stylized out of a job. Station architecture has been revamped to conform with the banality of the mini-mart ideal. Gasoline is just another impersonal—and expensive—commodity.

Super-sized for high-volume sales and maximized for profit, it isn’t likely that the gas stations of present day will ever revive the lost art of the classic American service station. The ultra-modern convenience store—with its Big Gulps, triple lattés, and lottery tickets—will continue to define the market. Until “big oil” goes the way of Dino the dinosaur, commuters have only one thing to look forward to at the pump: paying more for gasoline. “Fill ‘er up ma’am?” Well … at least the memories are free.