I wasn’t around in the 1950s, but the 1960s were filled with 1950s vehicles, buildings, people, fashions, music, and other things from that decade. The first car my parents had when I was born in the 60s was a 1956 Pontiac, and we had it for years, so it’s what I grew up with. This Milton Driveway Signal Bell is posted here on craigslist in O’Fallon, Missouri, and the seller is asking $400. Here is the original listing, and thanks to PRA4SNW for the tip!
The trouble with dating this item is that most sellers look at the 1959 patent date and list that as the date of manufacture. Do you remember the gas station driveway signal bell? The hose lying across the lanes by the gas pumps that you would drive over, and magically, a bell would sound either inside the station, or it was hanging on the outside by the door? They were a great invention, and, believe it or not, Milton Industries is still around. They’re still in Chicago, they now make over 1,400 products, and they still make these signal bells brand new.
This classic scene shows the hose lying across the driveway, and an attendant in a clean uniform is outside filling the tank. There was no self-service in this era, or very few stations did that. I can’t remember the last time I saw a driveway signal bell hose on the ground, maybe in the 1970s? Are there any still around today? It’s rare to find a full-service station today, but Milton is still around, and you can still get all the replacement parts for your bell, or just buy a new complete bell.
In 1943, two gentlemen who both had the first name Milton (Milton Price and Milton Goldish) started a company in Chicago making pneumatic fittings, and by 1945, they had introduced the Kwik-Change pneumatic coupler. It would be a decade before they received the trademark for that product, and you can still buy them today. In 1959, they came out with the Driveway Signal bell, the same model seen here, and if you could somehow zoom in on these photos, you would see a 1959 patent date. Here’s what the inside looks like on a similar bell. You can see where the hose connects on the bottom, and the bell itself is cast aluminum.
The bell doesn’t need an air compressor to operate as it runs on a regular household current. The air hose is plugged on one end (do you remember seeing these hoses with a bolt stuck in the end?), and when a vehicle drives over it, it sends a rush of air to trigger the bell. Here’s a fun video on YouTube that shows how they work. We don’t know the actual year of this bell, but it sure is a blast (or a DING!) from the past. Did you ever stomp on the hose at a gas station as a kid, or ride your bike over the hose? Let’s hear those old gas station memories!
Scotty!!!! You just dug up a piece of my past!!! I worked at an old gas station pumping gas at night for over a decade many years ago. I have a picture of it above. They had this exact bell!!! It was built in 1923, and still stands today. The current family has owned it since 1960. I actually have that bell sound on my phone for text messages. When I worked there we always cleaned windshields while filling up the cars. It was a Flying A back in 1960. And thats the colors they brought it back to. All of the lights you see lit up are all original fixtures from 1923, all knob and tube, each one was taken down cleaned and put back up. They don’t pump gas anymore, but when I was there the old National pump you see on the right was operational. It had newer guts inside . It was the pumps that were in place in 1960 when the family got it. I still remember pulling up the air hoses before any snow storm hit so the snow plow wouldn’t catch it. This is great Scotty thank you for writing this up. And also a huge thank you to PRA4SNW for finding this gem. They also had an air hose regulator that was red from the 1940s, still in use as well. I’ll have to see of I can find it. Thank you again!!!
Here is the air hose regulator they have. Its probably still there!!!
You’ll have to click on the image to see the whole thing.
This is a post card with it from the ’20s before the garage was built in the ’30s. Sorry for all the photos, but figured if anyone was interested in it. Thanks!!!
I remember these. The crank on the right side even had some resistance to it.
Cool stuff Driveinstile! Working at the local gas station you’d beat cleats to get the gas windshield oil and check the tires just seconds after the bell.
Thank you Nevada. I sure did. Never a happy medium….. Either no one for 20 minutes. Or like 6 people all at the same time lol.
Where is this?
Sorry. I missed the fine print on the postcard. Very cool. Thanks!
Its in Washington NJ Warren county. Earl Eckel is the man who built it. It was the first free standing gas station in the area. People thought he was making a mistake building it. But, he was onto something. He was an interesting man.
The brand new version of this product, save for a modernized power cord, is nearly identical! You could also jump up and down on one of these to make it ding. By the way the addition of a zip code on this example would mean it had to be manufactured in 1963 or later.
We still have a station in our small Town in Central AZ that has the bell, quit pumping gas 15 years ago…As a kid in northern NY every station had one of these, and yes either stomping on it or riding the bike over would easily trigger it; the attendant wasn’t amused after the 34th “Ding”!
Yes we made the bell ring and no Jerry was not amused!
I just bought a replacement Milton signal hose anchor the other day so they are still in business. We use the hose to trigger our garage door to open
Worked at a gas station Greenwich Exxon in the 80’s they had this hose set up. I could step on it and it would ding!, no little kids named Milton anymore.
Thanks Scotty and PRA4SNW! I saw the picture and heard the bell! I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve heard that . I remember it well. Thank you for the memory.
The “Ding-Ding” noise takes me back to my teenage years every time I here it. I have one at my home shop/ garage/man-cave.
If you want one, they are still being made, and available on Amazon for less than $200.
The liquor store that I work at still has one, they use it for the drive thru!
I suspect all of us Barn Finders remember these. I can’t remember the last time I have been somewhere where one was still in use. And I would have never guessed the manufacturer is still in business. Very, very cool write-up Scotty.
Yup. I completely forgot about these. Along with a lot of other things.
I worked at a Shell station in an inter-city neighborhood of Dayton, Ohio back in the seventies. Every evening eight or nine kids on bikes would dive bomb the station’s pumps on their way home after baseball practice. It was a couple of minutes of bell ringing as they rode in circles around the pumps. On the opposite corner a block away was a Bonded gas station where they would do the same thing. If I heard them down the street, and was quick enough, I could unplug our bell before they got there. When there was no ring, they just rode on.This is what memories are all about.
The one in my shop was operational until 2021 when we took out the underground diesel tank. That bell was the signal to stop fixing trucks and go outside to pump diesel, check all (18) tires with a gauge, check oil, washer fluid and wash the windows. The bell is still there on the ship wall and the hose is hanging outside, but I did unplug it since it isn’t needed. I miss visiting with all the drivers that came through from far off exotic locations like Georgia, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Texas and the like.
Oh my with the box!! Ding-Ding.
As I hoped, these are great comments and memories, thanks, folks!
Oh, what the heck, that sound is familiar to anyone that rode in a car before say, 1980, when self serve stations popped up. The gas station that required one of these signals was a very different place. No eggs or milk, maybe a few candy bars, but generally all auto related business. The attendant was usually performing other station related tasks, stacking tires, dumping drain oil out back,,oops, I mean in the holding tank, the boss too busy with that valve job, and the signal would summon the attendant. I notice the pump jockey in Scottys pic is pumping “Red Crown”, which was regular, indicating probably a 6 cylinder. “White Crown” was ethyl (or mid range), and “Gold Crown” was premium, all containing lead!! Good heavens, gasp, how did we ever make it? The kiss of death for these, was that punk that just got $1.58 worth of gas, (me) and had to spin the tires over the hose when leaving. They always had several “unions” and hose clamps from such. Great find, and for the record, I only remember one “ding”, not ding-ding, that was Rice-a-Roni,,
I think us oldies can also remember that brief period when , after stations became self service, you would pull in, gas up your car, and then go inside to pay. That didn’t last long.
It dinged twice when two tires went over Beautiful.
Thanks, TC, I meant one ding per tire.
I think the $400.00 asking price is a bit off when a new one sells for $103.00! And they do look identical, except for the box art.
Made in the USA for more than 40 years, I hope they survive.
I do recall these exact bells in the 70’s prompting us to fill the gas, check the oil and tire pressure. Being the Mini-Skirt era, it wasn’t unusual to have a “show” while cleaning the windshield. I sometimes wondered if the pretty women were aware of why several guys would clean the same windshield while the car filled with gas! Cheap Thrills …
Ever heard of trying to cut a fat hog?
And some would point to a “spot” I missed..2 or 3 times!!!!
Scotty, thanks so much for picking this one up! When I saw it, I knew that this was a perfect item for you and that the Barn Finders would love to see it and make comments.
Thanks for researching it and I am watching that video as I type this. I always thought it was air compressor powered.
I wonder what the HOA would think if I mounted one of these in the driveway – LOL!
PRA4SNW, thank YOU!!! Very much for finding this bell!!! Just a ton of great times and memories. And Scotty, thank you so much again for writing this I agree with PRA4SNW, you were the right guy to write this up. Thank you both again!!!
Oh yeah. When we were kids we’d jump on the signal hose and piss off the station workers. Great fun!!
Up until a few years ago, the Goldish family still owned the company. Dad sold it to an investment firm. Now, a lot of the product comes from overseas and the main focus is how can we lower cost.
Riding our bikes through the corner gas station lot and timing pulling up your front wheel to get maximum force to ding the bell..lol great memories. Must not have pissed the guys off too much cause they would always top up our tires with air.
In the small town in oregon I grew up in, the gad station still had a working bell like that in the 90s
I worked at a Shell station in 1970 & 71 just as self serve stations were starting to show up in my town. Our driveway bell wasn’t as high pitched as this one. It made more of a ding ding like the ice cream trucks of that time. I miss those days as much more relaxed and simple.
LOL Jay I caught a wiper blade with my wayward squeegee more than once!
@Driveinstile
Thank you for those photos! They are great! I love old stuff like that. I guess because like most of us here we used stuff like this in our everyday lives.
I had two uncles who owned gas stations and I worked at both of them. The “ding-ding” of that bell signaling a customer. Jump up and run out and greet them. “YES sir/ma’am, how much?” That went the way of the Dodo bird in the 1980s except for New Jersey. The governor wouldn’t allow self service gas stations.
That air pump so much easier to use than today’s pumps, IF you can find one that works.
Thanks for the memories, PRA4SNW
@Angel, thank you very much for the kind words. Lots of great memories working there nights. The building still has the original front door. Transom window above it and all the other windows and woodwork too. Its a concrete building, very solid, a lot of history there, especially being in the same family since 1960. As another interesting side note, Thomas Edison had a Portland cement manufacturing facility about 10 miles from there. Route 57 ( which was 24 back 100 years ago) was made of his cement. Warren county preserved a mile long section. Its litterally called the Concrete mile. Theres still some remains of his company. Some of the old houses in town still had Edison 94 pound Portland cement bags in their garages and basements. I can’t 100 percent say for sure, but I’m pretty sure the original building was poured cement from Edison.
Hey Drive…..
There used to be a huge junkyard up in that area. Very old. I mean so old they have cars from the thirties buried up to their steel roofs with mature trees growing out of them. What was the name of that place and is it still there? Do you know?
The only one that I can think of is Port Murray auto salvage. But they are long gone. I’m not sure how old they were, it was there for quite some time. Thats the only one I can think of. It was up a big hill.
Lots of memories on this one — back when we went “motoring” (not “driving”), and these were “filling stations” (not “gas stations”. Usually there was a two-bay garage, where oil was changed and tyre-tubes were patched, and you got a new battery (6-volt). There was a cramped little room where you waited — usually with sixteen years’ worth of soot ground into every worn-out seat-cushion, and more ash-trays than places to sit — all complete with windows brown-fogged by cigarette-tars. And the absolutely REQUIRED Coca-Cola cooler, complete with Squirt and Moxie and other soft drinks you don’t see anymore. And maybe a penny FORD gum-ball machine (where nobody considered how many dirty fingers had handled that scoop where your gum-ball would come out). There always was a big desk in there, up against the window, with a filthy padded green mat on top inserted into four leather corners. But, what I remember best, is the soot — TONS of it — built-up on every surface.
Lots of memories on this one — back when we went “motoring” (not “driving”), and these were “filling stations” (not “gas stations”. Usually there was a two-bay garage, where oil was changed and tyre-tubes were patched, and you got a new battery (6-volt). There was a cramped little room where you waited — usually with sixteen years’ worth of soot ground into every worn-out seat-cushion, and more ash-trays than places to sit — all complete with windows brown-fogged by cigarette-tars. And the absolutely REQUIRED Coca-Cola cooler, complete with Squirt and Moxie and other soft drinks you don’t see anymore. And maybe a penny FORD gum-ball machine (where nobody considered how many dirty fingers had handled that scoop where your gum-ball would come out). There always was a big desk in there, up against the window, with a filthy padded green mat on top inserted into four leather corners. But, what I remember best, is the soot — TONS of it — built-up on every surface.
Lots of memories on this one — back when we went “motoring” (not “driving”), and these were “filling stations” (not “gas stations”. Usually there was a two-bay garage, where oil was changed and tyre-tubes were patched, and you got a new battery (6-volt). There was a cramped little room where you waited — usually with sixteen years’ worth of soot ground into every worn-out seat-cushion, and more ash-trays than places to sit — all complete with windows brown-fogged by cigarette-tars. And the absolutely REQUIRED Coca-Cola cooler, complete with Squirt and Moxie and other soft drinks you don’t see anymore. And maybe a penny FORD gum-ball machine (where nobody considered how many dirty fingers had handled that scoop where your gum-ball would come out). There always was a big desk in there, up against the window, with a filthy padded green mat on top inserted into four leather corners. But, what I remember best, is the soot — TONS of it — built-up on every surface.
Hey Harrison!
Glad to see you’re still here.
Even though those waiting rooms were filthy, and you had no idea how many hands touched the gumball door and shoot or the soda bottles in the Coca Cola cooler, we still survived.
I apologize in advance, but I’m so tired of all the safety 💩 we have now and how afraid everyone is to touch anything without gloves, hand sanitizer or disinfectant. I don’t worry about that stuff cause I have an immune system and if I keep suppressing it with sanitizers and alcohol it’ll never work right and then I’ll HAVE TO use man-made junk.
Just my opinion. But I like the old ways. Life now is too sterile.
Lots of memories on this one — back when we went “motoring” (not “driving”), and these were “filling stations” (not “gas stations”). Usually there was a two-bay garage, where oil was changed and tyre-tubes were patched, and you got a new battery (6-volt). There was a cramped little room where you waited, one door leading out front, and the other into the garage — usually with sixteen years’ worth of soot ground into every worn-out seat-cushion, and more ash-trays than places to sit — all complete with windows brown-fogged by cigarette-tars. And the absolutely REQUIRED Coca-Cola cooler, complete with Squirt and Moxie and other soft drinks you don’t see anymore. And maybe a penny FORD gum-ball machine (where nobody considered how many dirty fingers had handled that scoop where your gum-ball would come out). There always was a big desk in there, up against the window, with a filthy padded green mat on top inserted into four leather corners. But, what I remember best, is the soot — TONS of it — built-up on every surface.
As someone has said, can still buy these brand new, for about a quarter of this asking price here from Milton.
$179 plus shipping from Milton…but who knows how much of it is Chinese….
We had a silver driveway bell in our Texaco. By the age of 10 or so I was trained like one of Pavlov’s dogs to react to that sound. DING DING, Fill it up with Sky Chief?”
Hi, Angel_Cadillac_Queen_Diva! Far be it from me to “correct” your on-point comment — but, you left-out FACE MASKS!!! (my way of saying that I agree with you!). Wonder how we ever survived growing up on farms! (*smile*)
Thanks to all for some great stories from our past. I hope this one “takes”, it’s very important, pertaining to gas stations. Get this,,my son lives in Portland, and has a newer Jeep Compass( I think), anyway, him and my DIL wanted to go somewhere, my son noticed low on gas. He went to the local gas station, and in Oregon, there is no self serve, so my son gave the attendant $20 bucks, upon filling, big puddle of gas on the ground, attendant said, “you have a problem, please pull away from the pump”. He had the car towed, turns out, crooks are puncturing gas tanks rather than siphoning gas. The shop said they had done several tanks already that week. Nice world, hey? Oh sure, we all siphoned gas from the old mans Oldsmobile, but no real harm done. Puncturing gas tanks,,,
YIKES! Sadly, Oregon in many places has “soft” law-enforcement, and that leads to increased crime. I hope this idea of gas tank puncturing doesn’t catch-on!
We just bought an old service station last year and guess what it came with? A new, never used MILTON bell replacement or what I assume to be a back up bell as it was identical to the one still hanging. It definitely outlived the owner(s) and either probably will outlive me. These things were made in USA, which used to meant something. Imagine how smaller our landfills would be if we didn’t use cheaper junk. Thanks for sharing this!
@TCOPPS
I tried to give your post a “thumbs up? 👍” but as usual, it’s not working. Must have been “made in Taiwan “
I can’t do it either…..
Welcome to the club, my thumbs up has not worked in years.
The old-school BP fuel and service station on the traffic circle in Derry, NH has one of these bells! It rings every time I stop there for gas.
I pulled in for an emissions test this afternoon and heard the familiar “ding ding”. Sure enough, I looked up and saw the “Milton Driveway Signal” bell looking exactly like this one.
I mentioned it to the young testing guy and he said that so many people comment about it, so he was very familiar with it.
I remember these.
First glance at the emailed photo on a small screen and I thought it was a Trippe Lite back up alarm. I recently found 4 of these NOS.
So many comments and none say how this work as and what the electric does.
Rallye, there is a link to a YouTube video that shows how the Milton Signal Bell works in the article that Scotty wrote.
Listing update: the seller removed this listing so it must have sold.
I contacted him a half dozen times thru all his contact info. no response..got one right from Milton in 2 days…:>) ding-ding!!