YORK COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM) — There was a time when traveling across the country meant a road trip – not a flight – for most people.
And back in the 1940s, that road trip didn’t happen on interstate highways but an older generation of roads like the Lincoln Highway, old U.S. 30 in York (along what is now route 462, parallel to and south of current U.S. 30).
Longtime Broad Street Market seafood vendor closing
And on Lincoln Highway were places to stay like the Modernaire Motel in Springettsbury Township, which opened in 1949. And people who stayed in those places found those places not by searching online travel sites or even calling a toll-free phone number but thanks to bright neon signs, like the one in front of the Modernaire.
The motel changed hands several times and closed for the last time in 2023, said Tom Davidson, state director of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Lincoln Highway Association. And this time, the building’s fate seems sealed: a Wawa will replace it.
But the neon sign could end up restored and in York’s Agricultural & Industrial Museum, thanks to work by the highway association and Preservation Pennsylvania and the generosity of donors .