This is an IHeart podcast.

And we continue with our American stories.

And now it's time for our American Dreamers series, which is sponsored by the great folks

at the Job Creators Network, and they work hard to help small businesses grow into bigger

ones by fighting for public policies that effectuate such things.

And today, we bring you the story of someone who likely his name you don't know, and his

name is Kemmins Wilson, but you definitely know the iconic brand that he brought us.

Here's his son, Kemmins Wilson Jr. with his story.

In 1951, we took a family vacation to Washington, D.C. and we had a big station wagon and my father was going up there.

I think, you know, again, this was a dual family vacation business trip. My two brothers, two sisters, all piled in the car, no air condition,

and one of a funny store, we had a luggage rack on top. And partway through the trip,

that suitcase flew off. And my brother Bob said, hey dad, he said, don't bother me, I'm driving.

And Dad, be quiet.

And they just kept driving.

Hey, Dad, I need to be quiet.

So we get to some, I guess the next gasoline station, and he looked up like, what is wrong?

What, where is this?

So my brother Bob said, well, I was trying to tell you that the suitcase fell off.

So we drove back and our clothes were all over the road. They had tar all over them. Back in those days,

you know, the road had a lot of tar. And so we basically had to throw them away and buy some

new ones. But the real story there was that back in those days, they were mostly sole proprietor and mom and pop

motel cabana cabin owners that had motel type rooms now the big cities had the

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