FERRIDAY, La. – Sitting across Louisiana 568 from First United Pentecostal Church is a Ferriday landmark is a dinosaur of sorts — a once-thriving full-service gas station, the kind one doesn’t see around much any more.

The building is in disarray, the white paint cracked and some of the windows boarded up.

As of Friday afternoon, the only car parked at the station was the one that broke down on Louisiana 568 in front of the building that morning.

But in its day, the former Standard Oil Service Station was a thriving business, said Dr. Joe Lancaster, whose father built the station in the early 1920s.

Arthur Knesel, Lancaster’s step-grandfather, was known for his ability to maintain automobiles. &uot;People from all over the country came to that station to have their cars greased,&uot; Lancaster said.

The station was open in one form or another — several people operated it after Knesel got too ill to run it — until about a decade ago, Lancaster said.

&uot;It was a full service station. They did everything there,&uot; he said. &uot;But that kind of service station is dead now. … I won’t open it again.&uot;

For one thing, renovating the station to meet modern environmental standards would be too costly, said Lancaster’s wife, Jimmie Lancaster.

&uot;Also, when we rented it out, a lot of men hung around the station, and I don’t think that’s good with my daughter living here,&uot;&160;she said.

The Lancasters’ daughter, Lisa Smith, lives in a house — the &uot;old home place,&uot; Jimmie Lancaster calls it — behind the old service station. Joe and Jimmie live across Lancaster Street from their daughter, in a subdivision called Lancaster Addition.

The family has owned the land since the 1920s, land where an old dairy farm once stood, too.

Given the history of the land and the former service station that still stand there, it is still debatable whether the family will tear the building down.

&uot;It’s a landmark to people around here,&uot;&160;Joe Lancaster said.

The Dart is a weekly feature in which a reporter throws a dart at a map and finds a story where it lands.