Abandoned Cathedral City Gas Station Eats Dust

The Shell gas station at the corner of Date Palm and E. Palm Canyon is history, as a bulldozer tore it to pieces Tuesday.

“[The station] was running when we first got here for about a year,” said Carol Harding. “The prices were really good and everything. But, the minute you like something, then it goes away.”

But, Harding isn’t crying over the demolition. She’s celebrating.

The station was sitting empty for ten years, and it turned into an eyesore.

Beginning at 7:09 a.m., the station became a memory.

“It also opens up the view corridor towards city hall so people can see the development that will be going on on the other side of the street,” said Mayor Kathy DeRosa.

The demolition cost at least $18,000. The U.S. Dept. of the Interior helped pay for it.

Kim Snyder from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) began the paperwork five years ago.

“I used to drive by this gas station everyday,” he said. “That gas station has to go one way or another, and it’s going to go before I leave.”

Mayor DeRosa had a last-minute special request: to save one tree that was obviously flourishing.

Snyder allowed the tree to be kept standing.

The demolition and cleanup will take one week. No word yet if anything will be built on the site.