Filling In

Wellston, Ohio, a town of 6,000, 75 miles southeast of Columbus, is short on cash and long on potholes; about 10,000 of them pit Wellston's 44 miles of streets. When former Police Chief Max Downard burst a tire in a particularly jagged chasm, he jokingly proposed to Mayor Harold Souders that the town sell its potholes to help raise the $70,000 needed to repair last winter's wear and tear. After the suggestion was reported in the paper, says Souders, "a woman walked in with a check for two potholes." Then another woman came in, and then another. With that, the town went into business. For $10 per hole (or $25 for three), a buyer gets a certificate of ownership, a photograph of the hole and an implied promise that it will be filled.

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