ABOVE: Work is ongoing at Poppe’s in Fairmont as the gas station is being decommissioned. The car wash, however, will remain with the new owner.

FAIRMONT–Last month Poppe’s store and gas station, the last locally owned gas station in Fairmont, announced it would be closing but since then a lot of activity has been taking place at the business, located at 1317 N. State Street in Fairmont, as the fuel tanks are being removed. While the gas station will not remain, the carwash will and the new owner plans to expand it, too.

Poppe’s most current owners, Brian and Renee, bought it from Brian’s father, Loren, in 1978.

Originally it was a gas station and had two service bays.

“When Brian started running it, we had just a little store with some pop and candy,” Renee said. “We put a car wash on the south end of the building and that’s when we turned it into a convenient store. It was one of the first convenient stores.”

The service bays were transformed into a rollover car wash in 1986 and in the early 1990s, the tunnel car wash building, which also houses offices, was added.

“The first car wash was attended by four or five kids at a time,” Renee explained.

She estimates that they’ve employed at least around 300 people over the years, including their two daughters, and noted that they had some kids on the DECA program.

“Some of the girls worked in the convenient store after school,” Renee said.

In 1990, Poppe’s started selling lottery tickets and it had remained as the longest running lottery retailer that hadn’t changed hands since 1990.

“We were here before Hy-Vee and before Fareway,” Renee said.

For a long time Poppe’s was associated with brand Phillips 66– which is why many people still think of Poppe’s as Poppe’s 66– but at one point it partnered up with ProFuel and in 2013 it switched to Cenex, which more people in the county were familiar with.

They sold racing fuel for quite a few years and Brian said they sponsored a lot of cars, too. They also had a bulk delivery service and Brian delivered fuel to many area farmers.

Over the years the business had many other examples of community involvement as they gave gas cards to Fairmont Women of Today’s gas for grads program, supported area school proms and the Martin County Fair.

When asked what some of the biggest changes have been, Renee said, “gas prices,” with a laugh.

Brian said that when I-90 opened they saw a large increase in business.

“So many people came off the highway and that was before we were ready for that kind of traffic,” Brian said.

Renee added that that was before Super America was there so Poppe’s was the first gas station off of the highway.

The decision for the Poppes to sell is really quite simple.

“We’re retiring,” said Renee.

The business wasn’t really put up for sale because they had a buyer in mind as Jon Walters of My Guy Inc., had been leasing the car wash for the last eight years.

“This is what we build, maintain and install,” he said of the automatic car wash that replaced the tunnel wash about eight years ago.

As he knew the Poppes were getting ready to retire, he felt it would be a good opportunity to buy the business so as not to lose the car wash. The business will be renamed to Poppin’ Carwash.

However Walters has made the decision to decommission the gas station which involves taking out the gas tanks and other associated equipment. He will keep the canopy up and put in a set of vacuums under it.

As for the building of the former store, Walters is unsure of what he will do with it, though he knows he would like to expand the car wash. Right now there are two self-serve bays and one automatic car wash that is open from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. Hours and operations haven’t been impacted by the ongoing work.

“It’s bittersweet to see it (the gas station) close because we were here for so long, but it’s nice to see that the car wash is staying,” Renee said.

She said some people have asked where they’ll get their popcorn.

“We sold a lot of popcorn. That’s why some people were mostly sad we were closing– we sold a lot of popcorn,” Renee said. “We’ll miss the customers the most. We’ve had a lot of loyal customers. A lot of them had been coming here since they were kids.