University of Virginia Library

Gasoline, Fuel Oil, and Tires

Indeed, the first touch of war passed over Charlottesville and Albemarle
County so lightly that it was scarcely felt. In the summer of
1941 the loan of a number of tankers to Britain threatened to create
a shortage of gasoline on the East Coast. Petroleum Coordinator
Harold Ickes in August restricted deliveries to all service stations in
the area and limited their operation to a seventy-two-hour week.
The only inconvenience resulting, however, was the occasional
stranding of a late traveler, and when the return of the tankers made
possible the removal of all restrictions on October 24, the shortage
was put down as a mere Washington panic.[1]

Hardly had the laughter at Ickes' scarcity died down before the
war was brought home to the motorist with a vengeance. In the
middle of the war bulletins which came crackling out of his radio on
that Sunday afternoon of December 7, 1941, was the announcement
that the sale of all automobile and truck tires had been suspended.
The car owner at once realized that he would have to revise his casual
peacetime driving habits to make his tires last out the war. By
December 21 local grocers had decided to limit deliveries to save

rubber, and Randolph H. Perry, secretary of the Charlottesville and
Albemarle Chamber of Commerce, urged the public to cooperate in
supporting this first conservation measure.[2]

Soon a program was under way to control the sale of tires. On
January 5, 1942, tire ration boards were named for the county and
the city. In time these same boards undertook the rationing of
other scarce commodities and set up a number of panels to handle
their various activities. Originally the Albemarle County War Price
and Rationing Board consisted of Edgar L. Bradley of Scottsville,
who became chairman, H. A. Haden, James Gordon Smith, Sr., and
R. F. Loving. Later, after Smith had resigned, Henry Chiles and
Mrs. Randolph Catlin were added. Mrs. Catlin, who worked as a
full-time volunteer supervisor in the board office from June, 1942,
until it closed, donated in the neighborhood of 6,000 hours of work.
In 1945 the county board panels included a mileage panel, fuel oil
panel, food panel, automotive price panel, and community service
panel. Originally the Charlottesville War Price and Rationing
Board consisted of Seth Burnley, who became chairman, W. Towles
Dettor, and J. Dean Tilman. Burnley resigned from the board on
October 15, 1943. Dettor succeeded him as chairman, and Mason
S. Byrd became a member of the board. Tilman also left the board
by resignation, and Dr. Thomas H. Daniel and Gus K. Tebell were
added as members. In 1945 the city board panels included a tire
panel, gasoline panel, food panel, price panel, and fuel oil and stove
panel.[3]

By January 14, 1942, the boards were ready to begin the task
of allotting thirty-five passenger and seventy-six truck tires, which
constituted their January quota, to certain essential motorists, such
as doctors, nurses, and policemen. The first certificates authorizing
the purchase of new tires in Charlottesville and Albemarle County
were issued to Dr. H. S. Hedges of Charlottesville, allowing him to
obtain four obsolete 32 × 4 tires and tubes, and to Silas Barnes,
Crozet trucker.[4] In February ration boards had to take over the
granting of recapping privileges, in order to regulate the rush of
motorists to get new rubber put on tread-bare tires. The distribution
of new cars to essential users also became a duty of the local boards.
All of this, however, was only an introduction to what car owners
were to face. On April 9, 1942, the War Production Board ordered
gasoline deliveries to service stations on the East Coast cut to two-thirds
of the average during the preceding winter months of December,
January, and February.[5] This measure was made necessary by
the transfer of tankers to military duties, which left a gap in civilian
supplies too large to be filled by the railroad tank cars which were
pressed into service to haul gasoline to the East. Voluntary conservation
was already saving gas as well as tires, but not as much as
was required by the new order.

The Office of Price Administration, therefore, prepared an emergency
program for rationing gasoline in the affected areas. On May
12, 13, and 14, city and county school teachers gave up their afternoons
to help motorists register and apply for gasoline. The blanks
were filled out under the honor system, with each owner asking for
as much gas as he thought he needed. His basic allotment was an “A”
card, which contained seven squares to be punched, each one good
for three gallons of gas. For those who needed more than three
gallons a week for essential purposes, there were three grades of “B”
cards, permitting the purchase of up to nine gallons a week. Finally,
certain essential workers, such as doctors, ministers, and government
officials, were given “X” cards authorizing unlimited purchases. No
restrictions were placed on commercial vehicles. Of the 3,639 car
owners registered in Charlottesville, 328 were granted “X” cards,
although some of these were returned when their recipients discovered
that they were not entitled to them. More than half the
applicants, 2,191, had to be content with “A” cards.[6]

This system worked fairly well for a time, although service station
attendants soon began to grow careless about punching the cards.
A new plan was put into effect in July, when the cards were replaced
by a book of ration stamps. All motorists again registered at
the schools on July 9, 10, and 11 for “A” books, which contained
six pages of eight stamps each, each page to be good for two months.
Those who needed more than this basic allotment of sixteen gallons
per month were required to apply to their ration boards for “B” or
“C” books.[7] These new books went into use on July 22.

Along with these restrictions went other conservation measures
designed to make gasoline and tires go farther. The Commonwealth
of Virginia lowered the speed limit to forty and later to thirty-five
miles per hour, and car pools of share-the-ride wage earners were organized
to fill empty seats in commuters' and workers' autos. Exchange
of tires among friends grew so common that Chief of Police
Maurice F. Greaver found it necessary to remind the Charlottesville
public of a city ordinance which required that any person acquiring
a tire from any person or agency not regularly authorized to sell
it must report on the transfer of ownership to the Police Department
within ten days.[8] This problem was practically solved in the fall of
1942 by the Idle Tire Purchase Plan, under which every motorist
was required to sell to the Federal government all tires he owned in
excess of five per car.[9] All surplus tires in the community were collected
at local offices of the Railway Express Agency, which shipped
them into a center where they were resold or scrapped. As part of
this program, the car owner was required to register the serial numbers
of all the tires he retained and to have them inspected regularly.
This plan was put into effect all over the country on December 1 as
part of the nationwide rubber conservation program.[10]

Closely allied to gas rationing was the rationing of fuel oil and
kerosene which began October 19, 1942, and continued throughout
the war. Because proper blank forms were lacking in Charlottesville
and Albemarle County, the registration of fuel oil and kerosene consumers
and dealers was postponed until November 5. Even then
coupons for kerosene were lacking, and dealers took care of their old
customers on a credit basis until the coupons were issued.

With fuel oil supplies on the Eastern seaboard inadequate to meet
the needs of users, all rations for heating were below the amount
needed to maintain room temperatures at the accustomed levels. Instead
of keeping his entire home at seventy or above twenty-four
hours a day, the fuel oil user began to shut off the heat everywhere
at night and in many rooms during the day. His family accustomed
themselves to lower temperatures in the rooms that were used. Often
this entailed some real discomfort. Fireplaces and other supplemental
heating units became the centers around which family life revolved.
People accepted the hardships but reserved the right to complain,
especially to their ration boards. The system of allotment was often
a bone of contention as inequalities were pointed out. Yet most
agreed at the end of the first winter that it was to be doubted if any
entirely equitable formula could be found and that, even if it could,
it would not make insufficient supplies of fuel oil furnish adequate
heat. Conversion to coal seemed to furnish the most satisfactory
solution to the problem for those who could so convert their furnaces.[11]

Meanwhile, the Charlottesville motorist had had his “A” allowance
cut from sixteen to twelve gallons per month on November
22, along with autoists throughout the rest of the Eastern Seaboard,
while the luckier drivers west of the Alleghanies were permitted sixteen
gallons. Another shock came on Friday, December 18, when the
sale of all gasoline except for emergency purposes was suspended at
noon. Advance news of this regulation caused long lines of cars to
form at every Charlottesville filling station that morning.[12] The sudden
move had been made necessary by a large number of counterfeit
stamps in circulation, which had permitted dealers to purchase gas in
excess of their quotas. Again the situation was met by restricting the
deliveries to dealers, regardless of the number of stamps they turned in.
The inflation created by the black market stamps was reduced by
lowering the value of “B” and “C” coupons from four to three gallons
each. By Monday, December 21. The Daily Progress commented,
“This morning the gasoline situation returned to normal,
or rather to the state of abnormality which has existed for many
months.”[13]

Even this twenty-five per cent deflation was insufficient, however,
to make up for the amount of gasoline which was being siphoned off
into the black market. In desperation the O. P. A. adopted an emergency

measure to prevent the wasting of gasoline on non-essential
purposes. On January 7, 1943, a ban was placed on all forms of
pleasure driving.[14] “If it's fun, it's out,” was the simple rule announced.
Compliance was general at first. At the end of a week
Police Chief Greaver reported that his men had discovered only three
violators after checking every pleasure spot in the city.[15] On Saturday
night, January 16, eleven cars were found parked near Memorial
Gymnasium during a boxing match between the University of Virginia
and V. P. I., but investigation disclosed that all but one of the
drivers had stopped off on their way home from work, a procedure
allowed under O. P. A. regulations.[16] The traditional hockey games
at Ivy managed to survive when the players learned to take in the
contest en route to pick up their laundry from washwomen in the
neighborhood.

Although local boards continued to find few violators, car owners
gradually grew restive under these unwanted restraints, and compliance
broke down. On March 17, 1943, therefore, the new O. P. A.
Administrator, Prentiss Brown, announced that enforcement of the
irksome pleasure driving ban would be abandoned, although he urged
everyone to continue to obey the spirit of the regulation. As if to
emphasize the need for conservation, the “A” allotment was reduced
to one and a half gallons per week.[17] Virginians' hopes for more adequate
gasoline rations perked up when it was announced on April 9
that the new 180-mile pipe line to Richmond was ready to bring in
30,000 barrels of petroleum products a day.[18] On May 20, however,
they were startled to learn that, instead of getting more gas, they were
to have the pleasure driving ban reinstated.[19] A force of O.P.A. agents
along with state and local police, promptly took to the highways to
question motorists. Another step to meet the situation was taken on
June 2, when the values of “B” and “C” stamps were reduced from
three to two and one-half gallons, and the system of allotting gasoline
to commercial vehicles was revised to stop leaks into the black
market.

Many Virginians felt that it was unfair to include the state in the
northeastern area of the severest gasoline shortage while neighboring
North Carolina went relatively unrestricted, especially in view of the
opening of the new pipe line to Richmond. Virginia Congressmen
Dave E. Satterfield, Jr., and S. Otis Bland conferred with Director of
War Mobilization James F. Byrnes in July over the situation, along
with representatives of other East Coast states. Satterfield stressed
the paradoxical fact that Virginia, at the terminus of a pipe line, had
received several million more gallons of gasoline in the first five
months of the year than in the same period of the preceding year but
nevertheless had been allotted less gasoline than ever before. The
Congressman asked in vain that Virginia be placed on the same basis
as other Southern states and that motorists be allowed to use their
rations as they saw fit.[20]

Although no change was made in Virginia's status, the East in general
was tossed a crumb a few days later with the announcement that
each motorist would be permitted one vacation trip if he could obtain
his ration board's permission. This concession was made possible in
part by the completion of the “Big Inch” pipe line from Texas to
the East Coast on July 19. Petroleum Administrator Ickes promised
that gasoline rationing would now be equalized throughout the country.
Any joy Eastern car owners may have felt at this news was
tempered by the simultaneous announcement of a ban on the sale of
new tires as spares, a symptom of the tightening rubber shortage.[21]

The promised equalization was slow in coming, however, as shipments
failed to keep up with even the rationed demand. The official
abandonment of all attempts to enforce the pleasure driving ban on
August 31 did not mean that supplies were better: the ban was revoked
only because the enforcement policy had failed to accomplish
the hoped-for results.[22] In October equalization was begun, but it
was accomplished partly by reducing all motorists between the Alleghanies
and the Rockies to the East's starvation levels. All “B” and
“C” coupons in the area were lowered to two gallons, while the
“A” allotment in the East was raised from one and a half to two
gallons per week immediately, with the promise that it would be
raised to three gallons on November 8, when complete equality with
the Midwest would be achieved.[23]

Slight as this improvment was, it marked the turning point of the
gasoline shortage. Never again did the situation get as bad as it had
been in 1943. An important factor in increasing legitimate supplies
was the O. P. A.'s merciless war on the black market. In June, 1944,
ration boards began issuing serially-marked gasoline coupons, which
were nearly counterfeit-proof. Every dealer who turned in counterfeit
stamps had them charged against his supply, with the result that
the gas bootleggers were soon put out of business. In order to continue
their evil operations, crooks resorted to theft of legal gasoline
coupons. Certain oil companies were victims, and on the night of
September 15 the office of the Charlottesville ration board on Fifth
Street was broken into and several “A” gasoline ration books were
stolen.[24] The only liberalization permitted during 1944 came on July
25 with the granting of furlough gas to servicemen at the rate of a
gallon a day up to thirty gallons. By February, 1945, the Charlottesville
ration board had issued approximately 3,829 “A” books to
automobile owners, and had given 389,489 gallons of supplementary
gasoline for use in passenger automobiles and 1,663,742 gallons for
use in trucks.

The arrival of V-E Day was followed by the raising of “A” allotments
to six gallons a week on June 11, 1945, and the Japanese offer
to surrender brought immediate abolition to all gas rationing restrictions.
On the morning of August 15, for the first time in more than

three years, Charlottesville and Albemarle County motorists were able
to drive into local service stations with the request, “Fill 'er up.”
Tire rationing ended on January 1, 1946, although tires were still
scarce. By the summer of 1947, however, supplies had become so
abundant that dealers were once more offering tires at cut prices, and
getting a new car was the only problem left to the local motorist.