The World's Largest Guernsey Cow, a 35 foot high billboard complete with blinking eye, became a landmark for 40 years in Exton, PA.

In the late 1920's the area of Exton in Pennsylvania in the United States was little more than a sleepy crossroads in the middle of farmlands about 25 miles west of Philadelphia. Exton was established in the 1700's at the crossroads of Lancaster Pike, running west from Philadelphia to Lancaster, and the north-south road Pottstown Pike.

The Lincoln Highway, as Lancaster Pike was also known, would eventually continue across the United States to California and has its own historic status alongside such famed roadways as Route 66. These roads that existed prior to the dawn of the superhighway brought travelers through the towns of the American landscape and were integral to economies of those towns. As the interstate highways were built that bypassed traffic lights and slower traffic, road-side businesses, economies and towns disappeared.

But in the 1920's, Exton was just starting to experience the results of the burgeoning automobile industry.

Frank B. Foster was the president of the Congoleum Company in Philadelphia as well as a local dairy farmer. He had several Guernsey dairy farms and sold his milk to Harbisons Dairies in Philadelphia. Harbisons established summer quotas and many farmers were left with excess inventory.

Foster decided to establish his own milk processing and bottling operation at a farm he owned along the main crossroads in Exton. What started out as a milk retail store soon expanded to a full farm market with fresh eggs and other farm products including hand-crafted ice cream and cream caramels. He called this place Montcalm Farms.

Ilario Polite, an immigrant who came to the United States from Italy as a child with his family around 1920, began working at Montcalm Farms and by 1931 had started leasing the business from Foster. He changed the name to the Exton Dairy Grille and started serving meals in addition to ice cream, caramels and farm products.

A billboard of a large Guernsey cow that Foster erected across the Lincoln Highway was torn down when Foster decided to sell the land that it sat on. Polite said, years later, "My gosh, that broke my heart to see that big cow sign come down. But I said, ‘Some day, some how, I’m going to put that cow back up.’”

Through the 1930s Polite built the business with the help of his wife Gladys Michelfelder Polite and his youngest brother Joseph Polite who became the ice cream maker. By the 1940s he owned the business and the property outright.

Exton Dairy Grille 1941 Pocket Calendar

During World War II, Polite changed the name of his establishment to The Guernsey Cow at the urging of many of his customers who would often say "Let's go to 'the cow.'" At that time, people were referring to a small billboard of a Guernsey cow that Polite had erected on his property. By the end of the war, Polite was able to purchase the land across the road where the original billboard stood.

On the day the war ended, he called local sign-maker Harry Reed and told him he wanted to get started on putting the cow sign back up. The next day they were in Philadelphia buying steel for the sign and drawing up designs. Reed eventually dug the footers and erected and painted the sign all on his own and for $600.

When it was completed, The Cow stood over 35 feet tall and 48 feet wide. It was actually two separate cows in a wedge to make it easily visible to travelers going in either direction. It included a blinking eye that flashed at night. Polite and Reed decided not to include a wagging tail for fear that it would distract motorists and cause accidents.