If you own a run-down, 18th century hotel in Glassboro, can you think of anything to do with it – anything at all – except replace it with a Super Wawa?

Me neither. So it confuses me how upset people are that the owner of the Franklin House at Main and West streets has finally found an interested buyer, and a zoning application has been filed.

Though counted among Gloucester County's historical sites during a survey in the 1970s, the Franklin House hasn't really operated as a hotel in awhile, and a couple of weeks ago, even the bar – the last functioning part of the business – boarded up its windows.

This is the site of Glassboro's first tavern, built in the 1770s by Solomon Stanger. Revolutionary War Col. Thomas Heston bought it in 1786 and built it up to its more-or-less current form some time in the 1790s. The tavern was in continuous operation for nearly 200 years, run for awhile by a shipwrecked sea captain named Ebenezer Whitney, who married Heston's daughter, Bathsheba.

Does that not sound like a great place to wipe out and replace with a bright orange-and-yellow convenience store? Why else would anyone even buy the building (as the current owner did in 1971) if he didn't plan to swap the borough's identity for 24-hour shopping and low, low prices. And heck, a 200-year-old building isn't the only thing with a sense of history. Maybe Washington slept at the Franklin House, we don't know for sure. But we do know that at one time or another, just about everybody has passed out at a Wawa.

To understand the cultural advance we're about to make here, let's start with the first thing you'd want to know if you were about to lose one of the 18 county historical sites in your township: "Barry, where does the name Wawa come from?" Well, says Wawa's web page about its own company name, "there's no doubt that many find it funny." But apparently the company's original dairy farm was built in Wawa, Pa., which was itself named from the local Lenni Lenape Indian tribe word for the Canada goose found in the Delaware Valley. Once you realize the stores are named after a goose, that makes it a lot less funny, don't you think?

The original company was founded in 1803 in New Jersey, and incorporated in 1865 as the Millville Manufacturing Company. "In 1902," the web page continues, "George Wood, Millville's owner, opened a small milk plant, which specialized in processing and the home delivery of 'doctor certified' milk... In the 1960's, Grahame Wood, George Wood's grandson, recognized the changing trends in the marketplace…," and, well, now they sell muffins.

I'd say that's a lot of history right there, wouldn't you? Of course, it's not Glassboro's history. It has nothing to do with families who helped build the town. It contains no connection to the Revolutionary War. And it means destroying a relic that cannot, under any circumstances, ever be brought back.

But when they cut the ribbon for the Super Wawa's grand opening where the Franklin House will once have stood, they will do so with the words "History begins today." Yes, 200 years from now, people will still be going to that same Wawas, Burger Kings and mall courts they do now, and ordering historically significant hoagies and breakfast sandwiches. Wawas are for the generations. Time stands still in a Wawa. Ask anybody who's ever worked there.

Sure, you could fix up the Franklin House, turn it into a working business again, and open up the Super Wawa somewhere else – anywhere else – nearby. But when times are hard, the very, very, very, very, very first thing you should do is barter away your town's soul to a national chain of some kind – 7-11, Roy Rogers, whatever. As long as they sell Pepsi.

The past is all creaky floors and bad lighting. The future is tuna hoagies and Jolt Cola. The Franklin House may have helped start the borough. But every year, Wawa sells more than 24 million built-to-order sandwiches, and over 100 million cups of award-winning coffee! Over 100 million! Think of it!

I'm going to go get an award-winning cup of coffee right now!