Wolfe’s Tourist Home, Restaurant, General Store and Post Office: Walnut Bottom

With the coming of the automobile in the first decades of the 20th century, travelers took to the roads, and tourist homes sprang up to cater to their needs.

The Walnut Bottom Road is one of the main roads that runs west out of Carlisle. A person motoring over its gently rolling hills would come upon Wolfe’s Tourist Home and restaurant just east of the village of Walnut Bottom where they might stop for some chicken and waffles or a cup of coffee and a piece of Mrs. Wolfe’s apple pie.

Harry H. Wolf and his wife Anna B. left the farm, and in 1926 they opened a general store, lodging house, and restaurant/lunch stand. In 1929 the Walnut Bottom Post Office moved to Wolfe’ store, and Harry became the temporary post master.¹

Cumberland County was suffering from drought in the summer of 1929. Many county people depended upon their cisterns to collect the rain for their supply of water. A reporter from Shippensburg’s News-Chronicle interviewed several county residents about the effects of the drought. After interviewing farmer Herman Staver, he interviewed Harry Wolfe. He wrote, “Another example of this condition is at H. H. Wolfe’s lunch stand and gasoline station at Walnut Bottom. Mr. Wolfe, who also conducts a lodging house for tourists, has been out of water for some time. He likewise has a cistern as a means of water supply and has been hauling water by milk cans and truck from Carlisle, a distance of 14 miles, for quite a long time. He states that the restaurant and the lodging house consume a large amount of water which makes it necessary to get water every few days.”²

Shippensburg photographer, Clyde A. Laughlin, took this photo of Wolfe’s establishment sometime after 1929. The signpost in front of the house reads Wolfe’s - Rooms – Bath - Lunch – Garage. Another sign lower on the post indicates that it is the Walnut Bottom Post Office. Three Sinclair gasoline pumps stand in front of the adjoining building. The road is still unpaved.

The 1930 U. S. Census, taken a year after the stock market crash of October 1929, records the household of Harry Wolfe, aged 49, his wife Anna B., aged 41, their six-year-old daughter Twyla, and 20-year-old Mary Miller who lived with them and worked in the restaurant. The Depression of the 1930s meant hard times for Americans. Harry got a job working for the Pennsylvania Highways Department while his wife Anna operated the store and lunch stand.

In 1944, the Wolfe’s made the decision to close the tourism end of their business, and they held a public sale of their personal property on November 4, 1944. The description of the items for sale included, iron beds, wooden beds, cots, mattresses and box springs, washstands, bureaus, library tables, rugs, chairs and settees, oil stoves and heaters, lamps, dishes, silverware, a meat grinder, blacksmith’s tools, lawn chairs and umbrellas as well as “many articles too numerous to mention.”³

On July 10, 1948, the Vigilant Fire Company was summoned to put out a fire at the Wolfe’s. Harry discovered a fire inside the garage when he was burning bushes behind it. Although he managed to remove his automobile from the garage, the white pine and redwood lumber inside caught fire. The firefighters managed to extinguish the flames and save the outer structure of the garage.⁴

The 1950 U. S. Census recorded that Harry continued to do road work for the state, and Anna continued to run the grocery store. In 1963 they decided to pack it in. They held a public sale of their household goods and their real estate on Saturday, May 4, 1963. Their real estate consisted of a nine-room house with the second floor converted into an apartment, 1 ½ baths, a 30 x 40-foot storeroom on the lot with a 182-foot frontage and 194 feet in depth.⁵

Harry and Anna moved to Newville where their daughter Twyla, Mrs. W. Richard Kann, and her husband lived. Harry died at the Cumberland County Nursing Home on New Years Eve, 1976 at the ripe old age of 96, and Anna died at the County Nursing Home in 1978. The house and building in the photo taken by Clyde Laughlin c. 1929 is still standing. Although greatly altered, it is recognizable by comparing the windows on each building with the 1929 photo.