Ok, my first attempt at an answer on this sub - mods, do your worst!

Ida Tarbell’s 1904 muckracking expose on the Standard Oil Company highlights the state of the oil industry in the late 19th and early 20th century. Notably, the oil industry at the time served the purpose that an electric company does today (provide heat and light) so pre-automotive there was already a large network of oil and oil distillate delivery.

Pre-automotive industry, oil and its distillates were used extensively as home heating oil and to fuel lanterns (lighting). This required a distribution network that can reach far and wide to ensure constant product delivery to customers.

To show how pervasive the oil industry was pre-automotive, one of Ida’s complaints was Rockefeller’s goal of consolidating Cleveland’s 25-26 oil refineries that existed at the time (by 1872 Cleveland had a refining capacity of 10,000 barrels per day), well before automobile gasoline entered the consumer lexicon.

From a chemical engineering perspective, the pre-gasoline products of oil are not chemically dissimilar from mogas. With the advent of the cracking process in 1892, the ability to turn heavier oils (kerosine) into gasoline started to appear, it was just waiting for the demand.

As for the customer interface, Bruce Wells of the American Oil and Gas Historical Society notes:

“Presaging the first gas pump, S.F. (Sylvanus Freelove) Bowser sold his newly invented kerosene pump to the owner of a grocery store in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on September 5, 1885. Less than two decades later, the first purposely built drive-in gasoline service station opened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania”

“Bowser designed a simple device for reliably measuring and dispensing kerosene — a product in high demand as lamp fuel for half a century. His invention soon evolved into the metered gasoline pump.”

In short: Early automotive gasoline purchasers just used the existing kerosene network until filling stations came along.

References:

https://aoghs.org/transportation/first-gas-pump-and-service-stations/amp/

https://archive.org/details/historyofstandar00tarbuoft/page/248/mode/2up?q=Cleveland

While you’re waiting for a better response:

Here are two r/AskHistorians posts about this subject that I think back to every once in a while. I can’t believe they’re both from over 5 years ago now…

We have a « chicken and egg » problem with electric cars and charging stations. Did petrol cars and gas stations have a similar problem and how did they overcome it?

How long did it take for gas stations to be common enough for a car to be a viable option for the average American?

Also, in case it interests you, a fun piece of trivia that I learned either from these posts or around that time period is that ESSO is so named because it is the phonetic pronunciation of the initials of the firm that was its predecessor, Standard Oil.