Gray's Store in Adamsville, R.I., was set to close Sunday after more than 200 years. Some people believe it was the nation's oldest general store. Owner Jonah Waite, 21, inherited the store after his father died last month.

LITTLE COMPTON, R.I. — Gray’s Store in Adamsville village brought in customers for years with its old-fashioned marble soda fountain, cigar and tobacco cases, and Rhode Island johnny cakes.

The 224-year-old business may have been the oldest operating general store in America, although others have staked similar claims. Now its reached the end. Gray’s, which opened in 1788, was to close Sunday afternoon.

Owner Jonah Waite inherited the shop after his father died of cancer last month. He said Saturday it was a hard decision to close the store and leave behind all the history, but the shop’s finances aren’t sustainable and a supermarket down the street has siphoned away business.

Waite, 21, who will be a senior at the University of Hartford in Connecticut in the fall, also is consumed with pursuing a career in sports journalism.

“Obviously, I understand the historical aspect of it, and I would really love to keep it the way it is, but it doesn’t seem to me that that’s the most feasible option,” Waite said. “With the economy ... the place has lost its attraction, lost its luster.”

The shop has been in Waite’s family for seven generations, since 1879, and comprises the front part of the family’s home.