Frank Phillips, founder of the Phillips Petroleum Company, kept a deep attachment to Creston, where he began barbering at age fourteen, bought barbershops, married Jane Gibson in 1897, and later remained closely connected through repeated visits and family philanthropy. Born in Greeley County, Nebraska, on November 23, 1873, he moved with his family back to Taylor County, Iowa, after the grasshopper scourge of 1874, learned the barber trade in Creston, worked for a time in Utah, returned in 1895, and eventually left banking for the opportunities of the oil field near Bartlesville, Oklahoma. He organized the Citizen's Bank and Trust company there, expanded into oil, and in 1917 founded the Phillips Petroleum Corporation with his brother L.E. As the company grew, Phillips 66 gasoline stations spread across the country, and about 1931 one of the first such stations in Iowa was built in Creston. In 1930 Jane Phillips gave funds for a new library building in Creston as a memorial to her mother, Matilda Gibson. In 1994 the former station building was donated to Union County and the City of Creston, moved to the west part of town, restored through community support and volunteer work, and put to use as Union County's Tourism and Information Center, with period pumps, the Phillips 66 shield, and the company's traditional green and orange colors preserving its historic character.