Why Did Women Love this Place?

What is now a vacant lot, located diagonally from you, was in 1930 the premium in elegance and service to the traveler. The Cobble Rock Gas Station offered friendly service to your road-beaten auto and was touted to be the only women’s restroom between the long and rutted road from Craig, Colorado, to the mountain valley town of Heber, Utah.

In 1890, the corner originally housed a general store, but over the next twenty-nine years as Vernal continued to change, so did the building. When it was a furniture store, immigrants thriftily bought their first handmade bed-frames there. When it was a saloon, tired coal and Gilsonite miners drank heavily and told colorful stories over cool Utah beer. When it was car dealership selling vehicles with strange sounding names like Nash, Essex, Buick, Hudson and Oakland, proud new owners paraded their vehicles home down Vernal’s dusty streets. The early cars were hard to start due to the persistent -20° winter mornings, so owners would rent heated storage next door, to the south. This large building provided enough room upstairs to be used as a National Guard Armory in 1939. Five trucks, clothing, bedding, technical equipment, tools, and lockers were efficiently stored on its second floor.

This is #17 of the 21 stop history walking tour in downtown Vernal, Utah. See the other stops on this page:

• Vernal’s Walking History Tour

This marker is located at 4 West Main Street in Vernal, talking about the location across the street at 25 South Vernal Avenue.