The first-of-its-kind American superhighway that now threads its way through Chester County will turn 75 on Thursday, and the Pennsylvania Turnpike is still driving significant economic and tourism benefits.

“As one turnpike commissioner said many years ago, it was sort of the eighth wonder of the world,” State Museum of Pennsylvania Senior Curator Curtis Miner said in a Go Erie feature. “… People were astonished that we had pulled this off, that it was possible to get on a highway and drive uninterrupted for miles and miles and miles.”

The Pennsylvania Turnpike was imagined in the 1930s as a replacement for the slow and sometimes dangerous Lincoln Highway, then first built in 1938 and extended to Valley Forge and the Delaware River in the 1950s.

Despite its tolls the turnpike became a popular draw for its time savings and its novelty, the article noted.

“I remember as a kid the family setting out Sunday afternoons from Carlisle to the Midway (Service) Plaza in Bedford for Howard Johnson ice cream cones,” Miner said. “… Everyone has a turnpike story if they’re from Pennsylvania.”

Shortly after its 75th anniversary, the turnpike will again hike its tolls to $56.60 for tractor-trailers and $19.40 for cars between the original Irwin-to-Carlisle stretch.

Read more about the history and memories of the original Pennsylvania Turnpike, as well as a special anniversary exhibit, on Go Erie here, and check out recent VISTA Today coverage of the turnpike’s newest developments here.