Inola Man's 'Junk' Turns Into Popular Classic Car, Gas Museum

An Oklahoma man's love for buying classic cars turned into an accidental museum, and it's a collection that hundreds of people stop in Inola to see each year.

Inside an old 1930s building is a car and gas memorabilia lover's dreams, though collector Mike Fuller calls all of it his 'junk.'

"Well, really that's all it is," Fuller said. 

Fuller started collecting classic cars when he got out of the Army in 1973.

"And it just kept going," he said. 

He now dozens of gas station signs, 150 gas pump globes, old oil cans and even some full perfume bottles from the 70s that look like gas pumps, of course.

Fuller: "Still smells like Avon, doesn't it?"

Tess: "We'll there's a good commercial for Avon."

Fuller: "Yeah."

One day, Fuller's hobby turned into something bigger.

"I've had stuff in here for years and people started calling it a museum, so I thought, 'well...'" he said. 

And that's how Mike Fuller's Auto and Gas Museum came about.

"Gives me something to do," he said. 

It's tucked away in plain sight at the corner of First and Broadway in Inola.

His dog, Buddy, always there, keeping an eye on things.

Fuller has two different shops for his vintage collectables and one happens to be in Inola's old school gymnasium. 

"You know, it works out real good," he said. "A lot of people enjoy looking at the building more than the junk inside it." 

Fuller doesn't doesn't charge and he doesn't advertise.

People know about his museum by word of mouth and that seems to work.

About 800 people stop by the museum each year from all over the world just to see this all the junk.

He's had visitors from Australia, New Zealand, China and Germany. 

"There's been a lot of people say this is best kept secret in Oklahoma," Fuller said.