[Suburbia Lost] BP Station - Maumee, Ohio

Not the first and probably not the last abandoned gas station in an auto-centric nation to be featured in this series.

When I used to smoke, gas stations often became my grocery stores. The quickest and easiest places to grab a pack, I could usually get almost everything I needed all in one place (which tells you a lot about how lacking my health habits used to be). I never had to worry about store hours or the dangers posed by marauding soccer-mom SUV's in expansive parking lots. Instead of long checkout lines, I'd occasionally get caught behind some poor sap trying their odds at the scratch-offs, but otherwise I was in, out, and on my way quickly. I never cared about brand loyalty. Gas is gas and my vehicles have never required anything more than regular fuel. Whenever I needed some Camels, candy, bread, milk, coffee, etc. I'd just hop off at any old exit. You can always find at least two gas stations it seems.

On longer road trips I'd usually take a little more care with filling up, wary of how rural stations will sometimes be closed late at night or how in more remote areas, highway exits donning filling stations may be farther apart. That's where we found ourselves in the summer of 2015: topping off the car in Maumee, OH before heading through Michigan. Ironically, the only reason I spotted this place was because we were getting gas and provisions at another BP directly across the street: a newer station that replaced this one.

As is a recurring theme in this Suburbia Lost series: when something becomes old, why renovate it when it's cheaper to just build new from the ground up?

It's not the first abandoned gas station to be featured in this ongoing project, nor is it likely to be the last.

- Interior of the car wash.

- Convenience Store.

- I'd be genuinely curious to know if any underage kid ever saw something like this and actually decided against drinking.

- Coffee remnants.

- Roof.

Suburbia Lost is an ongoing documentation of decay in the sphere of a perceived paradise. After years of photographing abandoned, forgotten, and often historical locations in the city, this project aims to take a look at how structures fare in the sphere of suburbia. You can view other entires in the project, here.