The Texas Avenue Page - The Brands

For years, there's been a "Carbon-izer.com" button at the top, and I've decided that to better serve this site I should integrate those a bit better. What I've essentially done is created a whole webpage for everything on Texas Avenue that does NOT have a blog post, and for most of it, never will. The Texas Avenue page, as of this writing, will be updated by the end of the month (yes, it does have some rough edges), but also serves as a landing page for all the other categories that fit into it. I verified everything below to go in...couldn't find [bars and nightclubs] though...and more will likely be added.

This page is not on the Index.

Because of the limitations of Blogger, this particular post just covers brands. More pages to cover soon.

Tags currently on this post:
Exxon,UtoteM,Circle K,AutoZone,Church's Chicken,Dairy Queen,Texaco,McDonald's,Whataburger,Starbucks Coffee,Sonic,Taco Bell,O'Reilly Auto Parts,Dollar General,Shell,7-Eleven,Conoco,CVS,Enco,Max Food Mart

O'Reilly Auto Parts on University Drive East

O'Reilly Auto Parts and its predecessor has been open here since the Arab Oil Embargo. (Photo by author, 1/2026)
As per standards made in fall 2021, the last time we covered O'Reilly Auto Parts it wouldn't count, but this one does. Opened in 1973 as Hi-Lo Auto Supply #34 (later branded as later branded as Hi/LO Auto Parts), this¹ became the first O'Reilly Auto Parts store in College Station (there was also a Bryan store) when O'Reilly bought the chain in 1998, adding around 182 stores to its repertoire². (O'Reilly certainly grew faster than Hi/LO did...in 1975 O'Reilly had just 7 stores compared to the 34 or so Hi-Lo had, by 1998 they had over 250 stores.

O'Reilly's website includes a picture of a typical Hi/LO store and it is what College Station's store looked similar to. Within a few years of the purchase, it had O'Reilly's branding and color scheme, and remained that way until 2016 when O'Reilly modified the facade to remove the large mansard awning.

1. Located at 210 University Drive East.
2. Hi/LO had 189 stores, but they sold the seven stores in California to Carquest of California, as O'Reilly didn't have any West Coast stores at the time.

Editor's Note: We (the royal we) have been hard at work updating some of the older posts on this site. Most recently (and most importantly), the articles for Former Fitzwilly's and Campus Theater have been upgraded. Nothing too groundbreaking...but perhaps you could throw in something for the site's future development?

O'Reilly Auto Parts Texas Avenue, College Station

You are now hearing the radio ads for O'Reilly Auto Parts...
Editor's Note: Welcome to 2020! The theme to the next posts I'll be doing on this blog is "Return to Texas Avenue". Here will be additional places missed in the previous posts, with a new index specifically for Texas Avenue coming soon. Additionally, there will be new updates to old posts that will be returned to the index. Stay tuned!

This O'Reilly Auto Parts is at 2831 Texas Avenue South at Morgans Lane, and according to Brazos CAD, built in 2001. The picture above is from me taken in January 2016 (notice there's not any hotels being built behind it), so it's mostly clear blue skies behind it.