A DESERT SERVICE STOP
Along National Trails Highway in Newberry Springs stands a weathered building associated with Whiting Brothers, the once-familiar chain of gas stations that served western motorists. Regional Route 66 histories date the Newberry Springs structure to 1951 and identify it as Whiting Brothers unit number 45.
BEFORE THE GAS STATION
The building is also described as having begun as Tony’s Cafe, built with railroad ties and stucco before being expanded into a service station. That layered use is typical of Route 66: small businesses repeatedly adapted to whatever travelers needed most.
THE INTERSTATE EFFECT
When Interstate 40 bypassed the older road, through traffic disappeared from many desert businesses. The Newberry Springs station closed around that transition, leaving the building as a roadside shell.
A PHOTOGRAPHIC AFTERLIFE
The station gained additional cultural importance because artist Ed Ruscha photographed a Whiting Brothers station near Ludlow for his influential 1963 book Twenty-six Gasoline Stations. Route 66 historians identify the location as the Newberry Springs site, illustrating how a mundane service stop became part of postwar art history.
WHAT SURVIVES
Unlike entire ghost towns that disappeared, the Newberry Springs station remains visually legible: the building itself still communicates the form of an old roadside service business even after commercial life ended.
NO INVENTED HAUNTING
ODDKNOWN found no solid documentation tying a specific ghost or paranormal incident to the station. Its abandoned atmosphere is real; supernatural claims are not established.