They were the creations of careful craftsmen, destined to become the center of attention at thousands of formal parties and weddings across Western Pennsylvania.

But did their customers treat these neatly pressed and hemmed garments like works of art? No, they dropped them on the dance floor, tossed them into swimming pools, and stained them with food—or worse!

And yet, for 50 years, rarely did the folks behind the counter at Hi-Way Tuxedo Shop in North Huntingdon Township complain.

Employees overlooked minor damage to their tuxes in the name of customer relations, said founder George Dopirak. “If you charge them for it, you possibly lose another wedding party.”

After a half-century of service to wedding parties, prom-goers, banqueters and others in need of a good-looking monkey-suit for the night, Hi-Way Tuxedo Shop closed in February 2001. Its stock of 2,000 tuxedos was liquidated to other formalwear dealers.

The landmark store on Lincoln Highway, near Circleville, is now home to Ameraquick, a sign and flag company. In its day, it was a mecca for spring formals and weddings, heavily promoted by two other Pittsburgh landmarks—Porky Chedwick and “Chilly Billy” Cardille.

But the decline in people wearing dress clothing to work hurt Hi-Way Tux’s core dry-cleaning business, while discount tux rental chains took away the formalwear business.

“With all the competition, what we were making wasn't enough to make it worth the hassle,” said Dan Dopirak, who was 50 when the store closed. He had worked there since age 10. “After 40 years, it's time for a change."

Hi-Way Tux's decades-long dominance in the Mon-Yough area was built on service, selection and showmanship. At one time, it had more than 6,000 tuxedos in stock. Dozens of styles were displayed on mannequins that cruised the store on a modified conveyor system invented by the Dopiraks.

The family also linked the store to two local broadcasting icons. "Chilly Billy" Cardille pitched Hi-Way Tux on his WIIC-TV late-night monster-movie marathon, "Chiller Theater"—and bought his own tuxedos there. And cool cats listening to Porky Chedwick on WAMO radio in Homestead were urged to call “George, Joe and Ju-Ju at VAlley 3-8042.”

George and Joe are Dopirak’s uncle and father, who retired in the mid-1980s. Ju-Ju was former store manager Julius DiCesare of Trafford. But the store's phone number, converted to all-digit dialing, remains the same 40 years later.

"Porky Chedwick did a lot for us," said George Dopirak, now in his 80s. "Bill Cardille did a lot for us. (On ‘Chiller Theater’) he had a whole rack of tuxes with ‘Hi-Way Tux’ written on them."

Courtesy of the GI Bill, Dopirak took a course in tailoring on Pittsburgh's South Side after being discharged from the Army in 1945. After a brief stint at Westinghouse Electric’s East Pittsburgh and Trafford plants, he opened a storefront dry cleaning shop in Wall Borough.

"It was a business I could get into without having to worry about investing any money," Dopirak said. Customers dropped their clothes off, and Dopirak sent them to a wholesaler to be dry cleaned.

Dopirak later added his own dry cleaning equipment and took in his brother, Joe, as a partner. A few years later, they opened a formalwear shop on Route 30 in North Versailles Township.

With an eye toward consolidating the stores, George and Joe Dopirak purchased a vacant lot in North Huntingdon in 1955.

"On that part of Route 30, it was the only place where we didn't need any money," George Dopirak said. "I think we paid $2,000 for it."

The building nearly wasn't constructed. The contractor went broke, George Dopirak said, and the bank foreclosed.

Purchased out of foreclosure, completed and opened for business, Hi-Way Tux thrived. Dan Dopirak credits the store's Route 30 location as a key factor in its success.

"There were only a few business along that whole stretch," he said. "That was considered like a superhighway. It was made for fast travel."

Although still primarily a dry cleaning establishment, formalwear sales and rental became increasingly important.

"When we first started the business, there weren't as many tux places," George Dopirak said. "I think we were practically the only place between here and East Liberty."

Lured by those enthusiastic commercials, customers drove Route 30 from Derry, Latrobe and Somerset, he said. "We even, on one rare occasion, had a whole group of people come out from Mingo Junction, Ohio," George Dopirak said.

"We had everything from the Squirrel Hill Tunnel out to Ligonier," Dan Dopirak added. "We had a lot from Plum, Clairton, McKeesport, Elizabeth Forward (School District)."

To display the tuxedos, George Dopirak in the early 1960s altered an overhead dry cleaning conveyor to move them around the store. "We had 91 (styles) on there at one time," Dan Dopirak said.

For many years, tailors were on hand to alter tuxedo jackets and pants to fit, and Hi-Way Tux rented shoes, vests, "everything but the socks and underwear," Dan Dopirak said.

"And we sold the socks," he added.

Basic black remained in fashion, although styles changed yearly—sometimes more often, George Dopirak said. "They changed colors, put a little extra design on them. People wanted to come in and take what was (advertised) in the bridal magazines."

Some brides wanted to outfit all of the men in their wedding party with tuxedos that matched the bridesmaids' gowns.

"In the 1970s we had a lot of rainbow wedding parties," Dan Dopirak said. Hi-Way Tux delivered the goods.

There were mishaps, of course. Partygoers who imbibed too much occasionally soiled their own jacket fronts. Many Hi-Way tuxes wound up in motel swimming pools—no disaster if they were allowed to drip dry.

“If they tried to put them in the dryer, they would shrink," Dan Dopirak said. “They're wool.”

Among the customers who wound up purchasing their rented tuxedos was a gentleman who drank a half-gallon of Scotch whisky before passing out.

"He was a big guy, a size 60, and his heart stopped," he said. "The (paramedics) cut the whole tux, right up the middle.”

Formalwear is a seasonal business, lasting from April to October, George Dopirak explained, and the increasing popularity of casual clothing in the office crippled Hi-Way's dry cleaning business.

Dan Dopirak and his wife, Rose, had considered closing the store for more than a year before they decided to lock up for good after New Year's Day 2001.

“People were in shock," he said. "They said, `You're closing down a landmark. We're going to miss you.' It was so hard to get anything done because everybody I talked to raved and told stories."

Although he's saddened by the closing, Dan Dopirak said, "it was a big relief off my shoulders.”

“People wanted to start booking (tuxedos) for the following year," he said. "We had to pick that time to say goodbye."

© 2006 Jason Togyer, all rights reserved. A version of this story originally appeared in the Tribune-Review, Greensburg, Pa., in 2001. Tube City Online is not affiliated with the Tribune-Review Publishing Company.