Published: December 26, 2006 12:00 am      

Pennsylvania Turnpike was roadmap for Interstate system

SOMERSET — The year was 1940, more than a decade and a half before President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Interstate Highway System into law. A group of Pennsylvanians with foresight and a gambling spirit cut the ribbon on a four-lane, limited-access highway running across the state.

It was toll road dubbed the Pennsylvania Turnpike, a road that would serve as a template for the 40,000 miles of interstates that now serve 230 major cities from coast to coast.

“It was America’s first superhighway,” said Carl DeFebo, turnpike spokesman. “When they developed the interstate system, they used as a boiler plate the information we developed in building the turnpike.

“It was a ... standard applied across the board to the whole system,” he said. “And it was done from a driver’s viewpoint, rather than a builder’s viewpoint, of how to get from Point A to Point B.”

For sleepy little towns such as Somerset and Breezewood, tucked away in the Allegheny Mountains, the first leg of the toll road – about 160 miles from Carlisle west to Irwin – was a godsend.

“We opened in 1941 to meet the turnpike travelers needs,” said Mark Miller, owner of the Pine Grill Restaurant, one of the first stops for motorists getting off at the Somerset turnpike exit. “I would say 25 to 30 percent of our business is travelers. The turnpike is very important to our business.”

The interchange – which on average sees 5,210 vehicles through the toll booths each day – has had a significant impact not only for Somerset Borough but much of the county, said commissioner Brad Cober.

“It’s meant everything to the town and to the county as a whole,” Cober said. “It’s meant Seven Springs and Hidden Valley, Fleetwood Folding Campers and the CVS Warehouse.”

Somerset Chamber of Commerce Director Ron Aldom said it’s because of the turnpike interchange that locals can have a cup of coffee at Starbucks and a meal at Ruby Tuesday.

“Somerset was built up around the interchange, and we’re working to beautify the interchange area because what (travelers) see first can dictate whether they want to come back,” Aldom said.

Without the pike, there might be little to see in Breezewood, where 18,648 vehicles pass through the toll booths each day.

Interstate 70 essentially ends at Breezewood and for 86 miles piggybacks the turnpike west to New Stanton, where it resumes.

“It wouldn’t be anything. It would probably still be farmland,” said Carol Snyder, director of the Bedford County Chamber of Commerce. “There might be a gas station for those headed down Route 30.”