The first long-distance car trip refuelled at a pharmacy.
On 5 August 1888 Bertha Benz drove roughly 106 kilometres from Mannheim to Pforzheim without telling her husband. Fuel was sold only as ligroin at chemists' shops – the Stadt-Apotheke in Wiesloch thus became the world's first filling station. En route she cleared the fuel line with a hat pin and had a cobbler fit leather brake linings.
Useful: New technology catches on when somebody uses it publicly under real conditions.
Source: en.wikipedia.org