THE EXIT ILLINOIS NEVER BUILT

Buc-ee’s is expanding across America. Its CEO just explained why states like Illinois may increasingly find themselves watching from the highway.

By Staff Writer | August 25, 2026

There is no Buc-ee’s in Springfield, Illinois.

That sounds like a small thing until you understand what could have come with it.

More than 200 jobs. Tens of millions of dollars in private investment. Construction work. Fuel sales. Retail sales. Payroll taxes. Property taxes. Travelers getting off the interstate instead of driving through. Restaurants, hotels and other businesses benefiting from the traffic around it.

And perhaps most importantly, another reason for people to spend money in Illinois rather than somewhere else.

Springfield Mayor Misty Buscher and local officials worked to explore an opportunity to attract the enormously popular Texas-based travel-center chain to Illinois' capital city. According to people familiar with those efforts, the possibility advanced far enough to be taken seriously.

It did not happen.

The concern, they say, went beyond Springfield.

It was Illinois.

Now comments from Buc-ee’s co-founder, president and CEO Arch "Beaver" Aplin III are giving that lost opportunity new relevance.

Standing at the August 17 grand opening of Buc-ee’s first Arkansas location in Benton, Aplin explained how his company increasingly thinks about where it will invest.

“We have a lot of opportunities. We’re growing. We’re building in a lot of places. But when you find a conservative, business-friendly state with a phenomenal workforce, it makes a difference.”

— Arch “Beaver” Aplin III, Buc-ee’s co-founder and CEO

Then came the sentence Illinois policymakers should probably read twice.

“I’m starting to realize life’s too short to try to build in places that people don’t appreciate what you’re bringing, versus a place like this where people do appreciate what you are building.”

— Arch “Beaver” Aplin III

Aplin did not specifically name Illinois in those Arkansas remarks. But his message was unmistakable: Buc-ee’s has choices, and political and regulatory climates matter when the company decides where to put its money.

That should concern Illinois for reasons much bigger than Beaver Nuggets and brisket.

A modern Buc-ee’s can occupy roughly 74,000 square feet, offer approximately 120 fueling positions and employ more than 200 people. The new Benton location generated so much excitement that customers began lining up hours before its doors opened.

Buc-ee’s is not slowing down.

It is expanding.

The question is where.

And Illinois is competing for that investment against states whose elected leaders are openly selling lower costs, easier development and a political culture that treats business recruitment as a competition worth winning.

Aplin said that culture begins at the top.

“That leadership, that concept, that idea of conservative, business-friendly, family-oriented concept works so much better if it trickles down from the very leadership from the top at the governor’s office, at the congressman, at senator, at the mayor, the representatives.”

— Arch “Beaver” Aplin III

He described Benton simply.

“What we found when we got here into Benton was a business-friendly town.”

— Arch “Beaver” Aplin III

Benton got the Buc-ee’s.

Illinois did not.

That is where this becomes more important than one missed development in Springfield.

Businesses compare states constantly.

They compare taxes, labor costs, regulation, permitting, utilities, transportation, workforce availability, litigation risk and the predictability of government itself.

Illinois' own Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability has acknowledged both sides of that equation. Illinois has significant strengths, including Chicago, transportation infrastructure and a highly skilled workforce. But the commission has also warned that the state's outlook is weighed down by its high tax burden, weak population trends and relatively expensive labor costs.

That is not an attack from a conservative organization.

That is analysis produced for Illinois state government.

Illinois corporations currently face a 7 percent state corporate income tax rate, before the state's separate 2.5 percent personal property replacement tax that generally applies to corporations. The state's minimum wage reached $15 an hour in 2025. Illinois also requires most employers to provide workers up to 40 hours of paid leave annually that may be used for any reason.

Each of those policies can be defended individually.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Democratic lawmakers argue that higher wages, worker protections and public investment help create a better economy and improve the lives of working families.

But businesses do not evaluate government policy one law at a time.

They pay the combined bill.

And the danger for Illinois is not necessarily that one tax increase or one employment mandate sends a company packing. It is that eventually another state becomes easier, cheaper or more predictable.

Then somebody makes a decision.

Caterpillar made one.

In 2022, the company that spent generations synonymous with Illinois moved its global headquarters from Deerfield to Irving, Texas, saying the change was in its “best strategic interest.” Illinois remains critically important to Caterpillar and continues to have a major concentration of its employees, but the headquarters went to Texas.

Boeing moved its global headquarters from Chicago to Arlington, Virginia, that same year, citing proximity to customers and access to engineering and technical talent.

Citadel moved its global headquarters from Chicago to Miami.

Those companies left for different reasons, and it would be misleading to pretend every corporate departure has one explanation.

That actually makes the larger problem more serious.

Illinois does not get to control every reason a company might leave.

It can control whether state government adds another reason.

Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell recently seized on Aplin’s Buc-ee’s comments as an example of interstate competition for jobs and investment.

Blackwell is a former Cincinnati mayor, Ohio state treasurer, Ohio secretary of state and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission. He has also become a prominent conservative commentator and advocate for lower taxes and limited government.

In discussing Buc-ee’s, Blackwell argued that the economic impact reaches far beyond the cash registers inside the store.

His point was straightforward: construction workers get paid before the doors open. Hundreds of employees receive paychecks afterward. Travelers spend money. Sales-tax collections rise. Surrounding commercial property becomes more attractive.

Then he posed the question that blue-state political leaders increasingly have to confront.

Why would a successful company spend years fighting to invest somewhere when another community is asking it to come?

Blackwell wrote that states placing heavier taxes and regulatory obstacles on employers risk watching investment move toward states that actively compete for it.

His commentary is political. The economic competition is real.

Consider Springfield, Missouri.

That city did what Springfield, Illinois could not.

Missouri's first Buc-ee’s opened there in December 2023. Local government worked with the company on an approximately $4.1 million infrastructure reimbursement agreement and a Community Improvement District. The location brought approximately 200 jobs. Springfield officials were so enthusiastic about the development that the road serving it was eventually renamed Beaver Road.

Two Springfields.

One has a Buc-ee’s.

One does not.

And that difference represents something Illinois politicians too often discuss as though it were an accounting abstraction.

Opportunity has a ZIP code.

When a company chooses Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Indiana or another state instead of Illinois, the loss does not land on some mysterious government balance sheet.

It lands on people.

The teenager who might have gotten a first job loses that opportunity.

The electrician loses hours.

The excavating company loses a contract.

The nearby restaurant loses customers.

The municipality loses sales-tax revenue.

The school district loses potential property-tax growth.

The homeowner eventually carries more of the burden when the tax base does not expand fast enough.

That is how an anti-growth climate can slowly reduce living standards without anyone announcing it from a podium.

Government keeps spending.

Costs keep climbing.

But there are fewer new businesses and fewer new taxpayers available to divide the bill.

So the people who stay pay more.

That is why Buc-ee’s matters.

Not because Illinois desperately needs a giant gas station.

Illinois needs what businesses like Buc-ee’s represent: investment that arrives voluntarily because a company believes it can succeed here.

And Illinois desperately needs to stop behaving as though companies have nowhere else to go.

They do.

Aplin practically drew the map.

Buc-ee’s now operates dozens of locations and continues pushing into new markets. Its announced expansion pipeline stretches through states including Tennessee, Louisiana, Kansas, Florida, Texas, Georgia and North Carolina.

Meanwhile, Illinois drivers searching for the famous red-capped beaver will continue crossing a state line.

That should bother policymakers far more than it apparently does.

Illinois possesses enormous advantages. It sits in the center of the country. It has rail, highways, airports, universities, agriculture, manufacturing expertise, energy infrastructure and one of the world's great cities. Few states begin an economic-development competition with more natural assets.

That is precisely why losing investment should be unacceptable.

Illinois should not have to beg companies to come here.

But it does have to give them reasons not to go somewhere else.

Aplin's words in Arkansas should therefore be read as more than applause for a red state.

They are a warning to Illinois.

Businesses have choices.

Capital moves.

Jobs move.

Families eventually follow.

And every time Illinois watches another opportunity disappear down the interstate, the people left behind inherit a little more of the bill.

The Buc-ee’s that Springfield never got will not destroy Illinois.

The dangerous part is how many more companies may quietly make the same calculation.

And never tell us they were considering Illinois at all.

Official and Primary Sources:

• Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability: State of Illinois Economic Forecast and Revenue Forecast, including discussion of Illinois business costs, taxation, labor costs and population trends.

• Illinois General Assembly Legislative Research Unit: 2026 Tax Handbook, including Illinois corporate income-tax rates and interstate comparisons.

• Illinois Department of Labor: Paid Leave for All Workers Act and Illinois minimum-wage information.

• Caterpillar Inc.: June 14, 2022 announcement relocating its global headquarters from Deerfield, Illinois, to Irving, Texas.

• The Boeing Company: May 5, 2022 announcement designating Arlington, Virginia, as its global headquarters after operating its headquarters in Chicago.

• Citadel and Citadel Securities: Company information confirming the 2022 relocation of their global headquarters from Chicago to Miami.

• City of Springfield, Missouri: Economic-development records and public information documenting infrastructure arrangements connected with Buc-ee’s Springfield development.

• Buc-ee’s / public reporting from the Benton, Arkansas grand opening: Remarks by co-founder and CEO Arch “Beaver” Aplin III regarding conservative, business-friendly states, workforce and future expansion decisions.

• Ken Blackwell: Biography and public-service record, including service as Ohio secretary of state, Ohio treasurer, Cincinnati mayor and U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Commission.