Chuck,
the same thing happened to me recently. There was this wonderful old Texaco oil distributor property that sat on the (defunct) Tallulah Falls Railroad line in Clarkesville, Georgia.
I kept saying that it wanted to photograph it for a project on my On30 railroad project. I went by one day and the tanks were just gone. Thankfully the buildings are still there (for now). I am trying to contact the owners for permission to measure and photograph the buildings before it is too late!
Ed, we had a beautiful old metal sided Texaco Station here that the idiot that bought it stripped for the "recyclable" stuff. Now it is just an empty cinder-block shell that is for sale again.
It is on my path to church , so I mourn its loss several times weekly.