Breezewood is an unincorporated town in East Providence Township, Bedford County in south-central Pennsylvania, United States.

Along a traditional pathway for Native Americans, European settlers, and British troops during colonial times, in the early 20th century, the small valley that became known as Breezewood was a popular stopping place for automobile travelers on the Lincoln Highway, beginning in 1913.

Over $10 million was spent and 26 lives lost when work on William H. Vanderbilt's planned South Pennsylvania Railroad project was halted in 1886.

[5] A community called Rays Hill (or Nycumtown) was located just east of present-day Breezewood where a man named John Nycum had a small store.

[6] On the western edge of Breezewood (or known as White Hall in the early 1800s), stands the Federal style mansion known as the Maple Lawn Inn (originally called Martin's Tavern), which opened around 1789.

[7] With the advent of the automobile, by the early 20th century, the area in a small valley between Rays Hill and the Maple Lawn Inn had become known locally as Breezewood.

[10] On July 1, 1913, American automotive pioneer Carl G. Fisher and other automobile enthusiasts and industry officials announced plans for the Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental paved roadway in the United States to be created specifically for motorists.

The convoy was memorable enough for him to include a chapter on the trip entitled "Through Darkest America With Truck and Tank," in At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends (Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1967).

Those experiences combined to convince him the need to support construction of the Interstate Highway System when he became President of the United States in 1953.

[12] Gateway remains open as of early 2022 as a truck stop affiliated with T/A,[13] competing with other gas stations, hotels, restaurants, and a Flying J franchise.

The I-70 section of the Turnpike included tunnels under the eastern continental divide of the Allegheny Mountains and Laurel Hill, crossing some of Pennsylvania's most rugged terrain.

These included roadway capacity improvement along the portion shared with I-70 at the two major mountains, where traffic had been reduced to two lanes in tunnels, and a realignment of the Breezewood exit and the turnpike to the east from there.

However, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission was not willing to build the interchange with its own funds, due to the expected decrease in revenue once Interstate 80 was completed through the state.

Former Pennsylvania State Senate President Pro Tempore Robert Jubelirer was not in favor of building a direct interchange between the two interstates.

According to a 1990 article in The New York Times, Breezewood offered "no less than 10 motels, 14 fast-food restaurants and 7 fuel and service stations, including two sprawling truck stops.

[19] Business Week stated in 1991 that Breezewood is "perhaps the purest example yet devised of the great American tourist trap...the Las Vegas of roadside strips, a blaze of neon in the middle of nowhere, a polyp on the nation's interstate highway system.