What a Mess

photographer Kevin Surbaugh

Time was that Baldwin City had two gas stations. That all changed earlier this year when the cites only locally owned station sold to the competitor across the street. That competitor took over the bigger locally owned location. In so doing the city had fewer pumps.  While this provided the Kroger Corporation's Kwik Shop more pumps it made a traffic jam at times, when customers jammed into one station to get gas.  To make matters worse, the company decided to replace the pumps.
The plan was to shut down half the pumps at one time to replace those then the other half.  However, during the first week of what became a two week process, a gas line was ruptured, bringing a halt to every pump for a few hours.   Eventually all the pumps did get replaced. However, during the process cars were often times backed up two to three cars at each pump.
 Meanwhile, at the old location, work had begun to remove the old underground tanks, but for the same two week period it appears work has stopped with a huge hole in the ground. At press time, it was unclear when they would finish or if the work would also remove the old canopy.

photographer Kevin Surbaugh