Delaware's secret place in Wawa history

Wawa marked a major milestone this week with the opening of its 500th gas station.

No, not in Delaware.

The newest Wawa gas station is in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania.

So why should the First State care about a new gas station on the other side of Philadelphia?

The answer is on the southeast corner of U.S. 113 and Laurel Road in the heart of tiny Millsboro. It's there that the Delaware Valley's biggest convenience store chain opened its very first gas station 20 years ago.

"I did not know that," said Jasmine Sanchez, who became a manager at the Millsboro Wawa earlier this year.

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Sanchez is not alone.

While the Sussex County convenience store played a key role in Wawa's backstory, its status is now an all-but-forgotten footnote in the $10 billion corporation's history.

"I knew that it was the first Wawa gas station in Millsboro, but not the first one ever," Millsboro Mayor John Thoroughgood said Thursday.

A 61-year resident of Millsboro, Thoroughgood was not yet on the Town Council when the new Wawa opened in 1996 at the site of a former propane business.

Every corner of the intersection, known locally as "four corners," has been a gas station at one time, he said. But nothing was like that Wawa.

"After it came here, we all had to wonder where we used to get gas at 2 a.m.," Thoroughgood said. "It's still a very busy place at just about every hour."

Although it may be hard to believe today, Wawa began in 1964 as a chain of what were essentially mini-grocery stores that predominately sold dairy products. The first Wawa in Delaware opened off Philadelphia Pike a few years later.

But by the 1990s, the chain was experimenting with its product offerings in the hopes of catching up to market leaders of the day, such as 7-Eleven and Cumberland Farms. The company added ATMs with no service fees, installed Taco Bell, Dunkin' Donuts and Pizza Hut stands and began selling its now-signature hoagies through touch-screen kiosks.

"What we learned from that was people prefer the Wawa brand of food service," spokeswoman Lori Bruce said. "Our focus then, as now, was how can we improve our customers' lives, and that proved to be a one-stop shop model."

Before long, Wawa was ready to enter the gasoline market. And as luck would have it, the first location with more than 2 acres of space needed to accommodate a "Super Wawa" was in Millsboro.

"Delaware has long been part of our core market and future growth strategy," Bruce said. "But that location came along at the right time and allowed us to experiment with a new product."

The first-ever Wawa gas station opened its doors on Aug. 2, 1996. The price for a gallon of unleaded back then was just 99 cents.

Today, about two-thirds of Wawa's 730-plus locations across six states sell gasoline. Collectively, they account for more than 2 percent of all the fuel sold in the United States – a whopping 20 billion gallons since the first drop was pumped in Millsboro.

The move to gas sales also helped boost Wawa into becoming a nationally recognized brand. The chain was named America's favorite convenience store in 2015, based on a survey by Market Force Information. This year, Wisconsin-based Kwik Trip took the top spot, although Wawa was still ranked in the top three.

The Millsboro Wawa, however, will have to wait a little while longer to reap the glory that its place in history rightly deserves.

There are currently no plans to add a historic marker outside the convenience store, according to the Delaware Public Archives.

"We're not ruling it out, but it's still too early," Deputy State Archivist Sarah Denison said. "We have categories for sites recognized with historic markers, and this would probably fall under social history, so I would say it would need to be at least 75 years old first."

So it is possible?

"It's great that Delaware has the distinction of having this Wawa because it is a beloved part of the culture in the Mid-Atlantic," she said. "But it will have to fall to the next generation of historians to determine if the site is right for a historic marker."

Contact business reporter Scott Goss at (302) 324-2281, sgoss@delawareonline.com or on Twitter @ScottGossDel.