More than just a scenic view
The rolling hills throughout western Greene County offer many beautiful vistas of the rural landscape.
But one of the most commanding views comes from Wind Ridge, a village nestled atop the hillside along Route 21 between Graysville and Ryerson Station.
Wind Ridge is known best as the home of the legendary Jacktown Fair, now in its 152nd consecutive year at the fairgrounds on the edge of town. But at one time, it wasn’t known as Wind Ridge at all.
The town originally was called Elk Ridge when Delaware Indians settled on this ridgeline that offered an exceptional viewpoint over the area. Thomas Leaper acquired the land in February 1798 and then sold it to Robert Bristor – who later settled Bristoria – and he laid out plots for a town he called Jacksonville.
The town halfway between Waynesburg and Moundsville, W.Va., was nicknamed Jacktown, and the first Richhill Agricultural Association fair began in 1866.
But when the town wanted its own post office, it ran into a roadblock since another town in Pennsylvania also went by Jacksonville. The natural choice to name the post office was Wind Ridge, which was chartered in December 1849. The Jacktown name, however, lives on to this day because of the fair.
Walter “Buck” Burns has lived in Wind Ridge for his entire 79 years. He loves the view from his 188-acre farm settled just inside the Richhill line from neighboring Center Township.
“I love the landscape. This time of year, the way the grass is right now, it is very beautiful up there,” Burns said. “You can see so far.”
Burns, who has been president of the Jacktown Fair for the past 30 years, naturally has another favorite location in the area. “The sunset is probably as pretty from the fairgrounds as any place,” Burns said. “It used to be people didn’t have the money to go on vacation. The fair was their vacation. That’s what everybody looked forward to. There are still a lot of people that way.”
But beyond the annual fair and the stunning views, Wind Ridge used to be a bustling town, Burns said, with two hotels, a Masonic lodge, blacksmith shops and even a couple of bars. In fact, Richhill Township, which Wind Ridge is within, used to be the most populated township in the county in the late 1800s as people flocked to the area to farm.
“Sort of like everywhere else, it’s gone backwards, not having any stores,” Burns said. “We used to have two general stores and a dairy bar.”
Now there’s only one store left in town – Stokes General Store, owned by Adam and Diane Stokes – making it vitally important.
Adam, 39, grew up in Wind Ridge, while Diane grew up in nearby Sycamore.
“I’m an import because I’m from one hill over,” Diane said.
“It’s two hills over,” Adam responded.
Adam and Diane have owned Stokes General Store since 2010, and before that it was run by Adam’s parents, Paul and Amy, since 1971.
It opened in the early 1930s and was known as the Braddock Brothers Store in a building three doors down where Diane and Adam live with their four daughters. The Stokes family moved the store to its current location, which Adam said was the former Richhill Township High School building, in 1981.
The store is vital to the community because of Wind Ridge’s proximity – or lack thereof – to other towns in the western part of Greene County.
“It’s an hour commitment to buy milk and bread, and that doesn’t include the time waiting in line,” Adam said of the 30-minute drive to Waynesburg. “You can walk right in and out of here, unlike the bigger stores.”
And Stokes has much more than just bread and milk. Hanging from the walls are various hardware goods, computer flash drives, greeting cards and even gourmet cheese from the Strip District in Pittsburgh.
“I think it makes it easier to live here,” Adam said of his store. “I wouldn’t want to drive to Waynesburg all the time.”
But more important than the convenience is the camaraderie of seeing your neighbors throughout the day, making it a destination for people living beyond the neighborhood.
“It’s therapy,” Diane said. “We have a habit of asking people how they’re doing. It’s like a bar, without the alcohol.”