Trucker Sayfullo Saipov was pulled over in March 2015, failing an inspection of his rig. It was 1 of at least 3 traffic tickets he received since 2011.
MOUNT HOLLY SPRINGS, Pa. — Nothing much happens here.
Nothing much has ever happened in Mount Holly Springs.
«It’s a quiet town,» Bob Snyder, a 78-year-old retired tool and die maker, said as he ate breakfast at the Hi-Hat Café in the center of town across the street from the Dollar General and a Sheetz convenience store. «I don’t know if we have a claim to fame.»
Mount Holly Springs found a claim to fame, if only tangentially, when residents learned that the suspect in Tuesday’s New York City terrorist attack, Sayfullo Saipov, had been pulled over March 26,2015, while driving a tractor-trailer through town. He was issued a citation for failing a routine truck inspection.
At the time, nobody thought much of it.
► Congress: Senator calls on Trump to declare terror suspect an ‘enemy combatant’ ► Immigration: Sayfullo Saipov was here on diversity visa. What is that? ► Timeline: New York City a terror target for decades
Police Chief Tom Day said the department — Day and corporal are the only full-time cops in town — issues «hundreds, if not thousands» of such tickets a year because Pennsylvania 34, which serves as the town’s main drag, is a busy road, carrying a lot of truck traffic from warehouses in Cumberland County south to U. S. 15 and interstate highways beyond.
The borough clocks 15,000 vehicles a day through town, the chief said.
«There was nothing that would stand out,» the chief said. «Unless something major stood out, no, we wouldn’t remember it.»
Still, the news spread quickly through the town of fewer than 2,000 people, nestled at the foot of South Mountain in south-central Cumberland County.
The quaint town about 100 miles west of Philadelphia has mostly older homes lining the main street and the few side streets. Mountain Creek runs through the middle of town.
Its commercial district also includes a Subway and Ugo convenience store.
Once, a toll bridge over the creek at the south end of town served as the gateway to the West in the 19th century, one old-timer recalled.
«It’s like Mayberry RFD,» said Delores Wimer, the proprietor along with her husband of the Stand Alone store, stocked with everything from furniture to oil lamps to swords and guns and dishes.
► Motive? ‘Radicalized’ suspect plotted for weeks, hailed Islamic State ► New rules? Experts say ‘extreme vetting’ wouldn’t have stopped attack
This is the kind of town Mount Holly Springs is: On May 7, Wimer’s Papillion, a miniature spaniel named Lily Belle, went missing.
Word spread, and people from all over town searched for Lily Belle. Neighbors sent over food.
The dog was gone 11 days, found in an orchard in York Springs, 6½ miles away, a bit skinnier but healthy.
The town once had two paper mills nearby. One still operates outside of town, manufacturing specialty paper. Other than that, it has little industry or commerce.
The town does boast that it is hometown to Sid Bream, former first baseman for the Pittsburgh Pirates, and that it has one of the best libraries in the state, if not the country. The Amelia S. Givin Library, built in 1889 in a building that resembles a Moorish castle, comes complete with intricate Moorish fretwork.
The town once had a public park – Mount Holly Park on the north side of town – that in the summer, would host country artists and other entertainers. Hank Williams played there, as did Gene Autry and Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers.
The most notable act is commemorated on the wall of the Hi-Hat with a photo and an old newspaper clipping.
Glenn Turley was a high school kid in 1947 when he was working the early morning shift at the now-defunct Gulf station. It was about 6:30 a.m. ET and he was sitting at the desk, dozing, with his feet propped up when someone entered, slapped his foot and asked whether he wanted to sell some gas.
Turley told the newspaper reporter that he looked up and «saw one of the Three Stooges — the bald-headed one.»
► Where he lived: What to know about Paterson, N. J., home of Sayfullo Saipov ► Soft targets: ‘We’re vulnerable’ to attacks, experts say
The Stooges were on the way to the park for a performance. A passer-by snapped a photo of them standing in front of their car, Glenn behind them pumping gas.
Glenn’s widow, Jackie Turley, who, at 81, still works part time as a hairdresser, said the Stooges gave her late husband a ticket to their show and a $5 tip. She said he recalled that their car had «a funny sounding horn.»
Until Saipov got stopped for traffic violations, the Three Stooges were about the biggest thing to have happened in town. And even then, Saipov’s connection with Mount Holly Springs is ephemeral.
He was merely driving through.
And it wasn’t surprising.
«I believe it,» Daniel Hurley, proprietor of Hurley’s Salon and Barber Shop, said as he shaved a customer’s head. «They always have trucks pulled over out there.»
And even to Saipov, the Mount Holly Springs stop perhaps wasn’t memorable. He had been a truck driver, and a search of public records also showed he also had received traffic citations on Dec. 4,2011, near in Dallas County, Iowa, near Van Meter, according to The Des Moines Register; and on Dec. 16,2015, in Platte County, Mo., northwest of Kansas City, according to KSHB-TV, Kansas City, Mo.
Still, Saipov’s March 2015 citation was big news in Mount Holly Springs. Wimer said she first heard about it when a friend texted her at midnight about the town’s tangential role in the terror attack in New York.
«It’s downright scary,» she said. «It’s a different world out there. It’s sad, very sad.»
Hurley put it this way: «Life’s crazy.
