The increase in automobile ownership after Henry Ford started to sell automobiles that the middle class could afford resulted in an increased demand for filling stations. The world's first purpose-built gas station was constructed in St. Louis, Missouri in 1905 at 420 South Theresa Avenue. The second gas station was constructed in 1907 by Standard Oil of California (now Chevron) in Seattle, Washington, at what is now Pier 32. Reighard's Gas Station in Altoona, Pennsylvania, claims that it dates from 1909 and is the oldest existing gas station in the United States. Early on, they were known to motorists as "filling stations".