CUMBERLAND, MD - Gas prices may be dropping, but one station was definitely offering the cheapest gas in the area.  In fact, the price was so low, it sold out in just a few hours.

Kenneth Hout waited about 45 minutes outside the Bel-Air Exxon, and he had a line of traffic about a mile and a half long behind him.

Cars lined up at the chance to fill-up for just 35 cents a gallon.  Some even waited more than once.

Hout said it only took $4.25 to fill up his first car, while the second vehicle took just under $5.

He tried filling up a third tank, but the fuel had already run dry.  Attendants let customers know they only had diesel left to offer.

Over 400 motorists jumped at the chance to get gas at a price only seen in the 1970's, and David Knoche, owner of the Exxon, jumped at the chance to give it to them.

“We found out by the Maryland Environmental Program that we had to replace the tanks in the ground, and the expenditure was just too high for us to invest in new tanks, so we decided to have a going out sale and to do that we went back to the 1970s and got the prices up and sold the gasoline as long as it lasted,” he explained.

The Exxon wasn't even scheduled to be open until 7:00 Monday morning, but they opened even earlier than that because cars were lined up along Route 220.  In just three and a half hours all 4,000 gallons worth of gas were gone.

"It's terrible.  We heard about it earlier this morning.  We tried to make it out here, we tried to even call, we just couldn’t find the phone number.  So we took a chance and unfortunately they ran out,” said Cumberland resident Brandon Ridgely.

They won't ever be filling them back up.  The owner is getting out of the gas business and just doing auto repairs.

The Exxon took a $9,000 loss to sell the gas so cheap.  Knoche says it’s just a way of saying ‘thank you’ to all their faithful customers over the years.

The gas station had a five dollar fill-up limit.  However, five dollars got every motorist about 14 gallons of gas.