What We Leave Behind Matters

BILL'S PLACE, Pennsylvania -- Technically this place is no longer on a map -- the realignment of the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the 1960s ended its tiny dot. However, for over 30 years, if you were traveling up and down the Lincoln Highway along the Bedford-Fulton county line, you were greeted with billboards bearing this charming rhyme:

"You may be from Massachusetts

You may be from Tennessee

Even from the state of Washington, it matters not to me

Tourist friends, we're glad to greet you

And to help you on your way

Our hope is when you leave us

That you've had a worthwhile stay

Bill's Place, Pennsylvania"

The Bill in Bill's Place was William C. Wakefield, an Everett, Pennsylvania, man whose gimmicky way to attract tourists in the early days of the great American road trip on the country's first coast-to-coast highway opened his door to the American dream.

The dream became a successful business that lasted almost 40 years -- because shortly after he put up the billboards, the cars started pouring in and never stopped until the day the business closed.

Wakefield started the business with $150, $110 of which was used to construct a 10-by-100-foot stand as a means to be able to afford to resume his studies at Pennsylvania State University. He had tried three times to afford classes, according to the local newspaper.

The first day he made 37 cents. But he was not deterred.

Wakefield put up a tent behind the stand and lived there for quite a while until business started to take off. First, he added a 6-foot porch, and then a diner, a gas station and, before too long, a gift shop with knickknacks, toys and chinaware pendants that read "Bill's Place Pennsylvania."

He married and had two sons, George and Bill, in quick order. By the time the boys were 6 years old, they were pumping gas.

His best business moment happened thanks in part to his success selling postcards. It was because he did such a brisk business with them that tourists always followed up with a request for him to mail them. At first, it was annoying, but ever the entrepreneur, Wakefield came up with his greatest gimmick of all: a post office. And not just any post office, the country's smallest post office, with the postmark Bill's Place.

It was not only tiny in size -- it was a 10-square-foot shack -- but it was also tiny in population: Wakefield, his wife, a hired hand and his two boys.

Word spread quickly and everyone wanted to stop at the country's smallest post office. And, of course, they wanted to buy a trinket, gas up and eat at the diner.

Bill's Place became so iconic that he convinced a salesman from Rand McNally who had just happened to stop for gas to pinpoint it on all Rand McNally maps. I can remember it on my father's old folded-up travel maps in the car that I loved to pore over as a child.

Wakefield also built a lookout perch that sat high on Ray's Hill for tourists to climb to take in the breathtaking scenery of three Appalachian states below and seven counties.

When the turnpike first opened with an interchange at Breezewood, Wakefield's business boomed even more. When the commonwealth decided to reroute it to add larger tunnels, the end was inevitable. Where Bill's Place was is now essentially gone. It is basically just the side of the mountaintop. Wakefield had sold just a few years before its demise to the Paul Miller family of Jeanette.

Where Bill's Place once sat was a tavern during the stagecoach period. There was a large stable that offered accommodations for the horses. It was also a toll house for those heading east-west long before the invention of the automobile.

Bill's Place wasn't just a place to set a spell, browse, laugh or create silly memories with your family in the same way Bill Wakefield wasn't just a guy looking to make a buck. He was a good citizen in his community, volunteered, led the business district, and raised two sons, including William Wakefield II, who died a few years ago. He clearly learned from his father's knee what serving your community meant.

When the younger Wakefield passed, his obituary was a tribute to all his parents taught him about work ethic, giving back, the importance of education and embracing life to its fullest. He joined the military while studying civil engineering and participating in ROTC at Penn State.

Wakefield II had a career in the Army Corps of Engineers, became an airborne ranger and served two tours in Vietnam, earning numerous awards for exemplary service. He coached soccer and basketball for his children for dozens of years. He was married for 49 years and in his lifetime visited over 107 countries on all seven continents.

His final resting place is at Arlington National Cemetery -- his father would be proud.

You have to wonder how many other lives Wakefield Sr. touched or inspired when he showed them the fruits of embracing the American dream or the consequences of hard work. Or how many his sons' lives touched as well.

That's the thing about leading a life of example. Wakefield has been gone for decades, and Bill's Place has as well. Yet the examples through the lives they lived still live on today through the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren whose parents shared an imprint of their visit that day at Bill's Place and passed it on to their family and friends.

All you have to do is take a ride due west on U.S. 30 until you hit Iowa, and you'll see a little bit of Bill Wakefield when you see the signs for Wall Drug hundreds of miles before you hit their iconic store in South Dakota. Thirteen years after Bill Wakefield placed his little signs along the Lincoln Highway in 1923, Dorothy Hustead started enticing road trippers to visit their out-of-the-way store -- and make their mark on American culture by employing the same tactic Wakefield employed when she came up with a catchy and simple jingle:

"Get a soda

Get a beer

Turn next corner

Just as near

To Highway 16 and 14

Free ice water"

Nearly 100 years later, Wall Drug is now an icon -- you'd like to believe that maybe Bill Wakefield had something to do with it.

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Salena Zito is a CNN political analyst, and a staff reporter and columnist for the Washington Examiner. She reaches the Everyman and Everywoman through shoe-leather journalism, traveling from Main Street to the beltway and all places in between. To find out more about Salena and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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