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Ashtabula, Ohio: Flying Saucer Gas Station (Gone)

Fondly remembered building shaped like a UFO that was moved and destroyed through neglect.

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Flying Saucer Gas Station - Vague Recollections

I just found your site and learned of the sad fate of that gas station. What a shame. It was such a tacky delight. I remember many years ago taking the Greyhound back and forth between my home in Northeast Ohio and my college, and as we rode by on Route 20 (back in the days when Greyhound still took 20 through Ashtabula) looking for that flying-saucer gas station with the racing lights as a landmark.

At Christmas-time, they used to put a plastic lighted Santa Claus up in the bubble, with his arm frozen in a cheery, mittened wave.

[Trudi Marrapodi, 01/04/2007]
Flying Saucer Gas Station

The flying saucer gas station in Ashtabula, Ohio is being dismantled and moved to the Crawford Auto Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.

[Catherine Schmidt, 12/18/1999]

June 2006: A sad fate for this one. It was hauled off to be part of a Cleveland museum, which lost its funding and the UFO just fell apart and was thrown away. The old Ashtabula site is covered with a Walgreens. Aug. 2003: Tipster Teresa confirms the old site in Ashtabula is just a vacant lot now.

UFO Gas Station, circa 1998.

Flying Saucer Gas Station

There's a great roadside attraction, although now faded, along Route 20 (Prospect Avenue) in Ashtabula, OH. It's a gas station in the form of a flying saucer. In its heyday (60s-80s), the flying saucer looked just like the Jupiter II of "Lost in Space" fame, decked out with flashing lights along its seam and a glowing bubble on top. The site was notable enough to earn a back page photo in Life magazine. When I recently passed through, the saucer was unlit, unused, and looking a little worn around the edges. No sign of little green men anywhere. Is it a real estate opportunity for an imaginative huckster -- or a minor eco-disaster? I don't know, but it's still pretty cool.

[Mark, 11/24/1998]

Update - January 2005: Added a vintage photo provided by "Johnnyboy." The flying saucer was dismantled in 1999 and moved to the Crawford Auto Museum, Cleveland, Ohio. 1999: We receive many reports on UFO-shaped buildings around the nation. We suspect they were part of some late 60s pre-fab construction craze, although newer ones can be found at "satellite" storage facilities. The Ashtabula UFO is in a unique style, balanced atop a gas station kiosk.

Flying Saucer Gas Station

Directions:
Was along Prospect Avenue - Route 20.
Hours:
Gone.
Status:
Gone

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