Evanston, Wyo. – This is America’s capital of cheap gas, and one reason is the Call family.
Ruel Call ushered the family into the discount gas business in the 1930s, starting a chain of stripped-down service stations at a time when rivals in this sprawling region boasted of full service. A nephew, O. Jay Call, launched another discount chain that has since grown to be the largest diesel seller in the country.
Ruel Call’s son Bill and granddaughter Kristen even tried to cut prices further by bringing the gas station into the Internet age. But they discovered that motorists will go only so far to save money.
This oil-and-cattle town of 12,000 residents is about 100 miles northeast of Salt Lake City, and cheap fuel has long shaped its culture. Wyoming residents drive an average of 18,283 miles per year, more than any other state, according to federal statistics.
Prices for regular gasoline here are up 24 percent from a year ago, but they are often still the nation’s cheapest. One station Wednesday was charging just $2.55 a gallon; the average was $2.66. Americans were paying an average of $2.91 for a gallon of regular unleaded Wednesday.
Wyoming’s fuel levies, 32 cents per gallon in federal and state taxes, are the country’s lowest outside of oil-rich Alaska.
The other big factor keeping gas prices low here is competition from all of the Call family.
The region is filled with Calls, mostly descended from Anson Vasco Call, who had four wives and 37 children. One of his grandchildren was Ruel, who in 1937 opened a small filling station in his hometown of Afton, about a 90-minute drive from Evanston. In the early 1960s, he launched his own gasoline brand, Maverik, which today has about 175 stations across the Western U.S. and Canada.
While other gas-station owners of the era bragged about good service, Ruel Call specialized in stripped-down stations with gravel driveways and offices barely big enough for a desk.
In the mid-1960s, O. Jay Call, Ruel’s nephew, launched another discount fuel retailer, Flying J, which reported about $7.3 billion in sales last year at 160 truck stops in more than 40 states and Canada. He kept prices low in part by paying rock-bottom prices for truck-stop sites.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Calls helped to pioneer self-service pumps and gas-station convenience stores in the region, slashing labor costs and boosting revenue with high-margin items such as milk and candy.
Bill Call, 67, sold his 25 percent share of Maverik for $6 million and now lives on 25 acres.
In 2003, Bill’s daughter Kristen was buying a movie ticket from an automated kiosk near her home in Arizona. She and her father decided they could use similar technology to automate filling stations, cutting costs by having motorists use the Internet to pay with bank transfers.
In May 2004, iFuel opened for business, charging 10 cents a gallon less than other discounters. Its main rivals, Flying J and Maverik, at first lowered their prices to compete. Then they discovered that wasn’t necessary. Evanston residents didn’t seem to be flocking to the new station.
Several missteps hobbled iFuel. The Calls equipped the station with payment kiosks designed for indoor use. In the frigid Wyoming winter, the keypads kept freezing up, so motorists couldn’t punch in their user names and PIN codes. There was no attendant to complain to. Worse, vandals kept breaking the glass on the pumps.
After Hurricane Katrina, iFuel got a boost. But business quickly waned once prices drifted back to $2 a gallon in January. IFuel closed April 11.
Bill and Kristen Call are trying to market their Internet-payment software to big-box chains with gas pumps. “There is money to be made in selling fuel cheaper,” says Kristen Call.
