Gas tanks pulled after five generations of service

You can find just about anything at the Gibson’s Kwik-Way in Newport Station. From novelty items to a can of tomato soup, it’s there. But what you won’t be able to get there anymore is gasoline. This is after five generations of operating the gas pumps.

The gas tanks were removed Friday, July 11.

Owner Marlene Gibson said it was a sad day, but that she could no longer afford to sell Irving gas. “You can’t work 365 days a year to be in the red,” she said. “I’m literally going in the hole for Irving every day.”

Gibson said that, with the increase in gas prices, there just wasn’t enough volume to make that the end of the business viable. “I’d have to have the pumps going steady to make any money at all.”

Gibson’s grandfather, Frank Hill Gibson, built the store in 1929 around the same time K.C. Irving Oil was founded, she said. “This was one of the first gas stations they put in around here.”

Five generations of the Gibson family have worked at the store, right up to present day. “All of us have had our hands on the pumps,” she said. Including her grandson Isaiah Durdle.

But times have changed, and how. Seventy-nine years later, the store is a dinosaur and, until now, one of the last independently owned and operated gas stations left in this region. And once it’s gone, it is gone forever.

Gibson had to fight back tears that morning as she watched the vintage Irving sign dismantled. “It’s going to seem so strange not to have that big light outside the store,” she said. “I didn’t close the pumps because I wanted to, but because I had to. I want people to know that.”

She first pumped gas there at the age of 10.

Those who will be affected most by the closure are the local residents who have relied on the full-service for years. Viola Ross lives just around the corner from the store has purchased her gas there for the past 18 years. “It’s the first place I stop on the way into work in the morning.”

She doesn’t like the idea of having to head into Windsor to fill up her tank. “People are going to miss this place.”

Gibson said they had always remained a full-serve station and that many seniors bought gas there for that reason. “I am going to have a lot of disappointed customers.”

Clarence Benjamin was the last gas customer at Gibson’s. He managed to fill his tank even as crews were preparing to dismantle the tanks. “I buy all my gas here no matter if the price goes up or down,” he said. “Now I have to drive into town if I want gas and that’s a long way to go some days.”

With the tanks removed, Gibson hopes to revamp the store to include more merchandise and maybe even include a hair salon. “Something that will make money these days,” she said.