Lincoln Highway News

An Eagle Scout project for Brian Cassler will be a gift for Lincoln Highway fans forever. The Kearney Hub reports that Cassler’s efforts will result in a recreated stretch of the transcontinental road at the Great Platte River Road Archway that spans I-80 in central Nebraska. The Kearney paper has 25 photos online, as seen in the screen capture below.

“The original paving bricks are getting pretty rare,” said Ronnie O’Brien, director of education/operations at the archway. “We were going to contract with a brick company to recreate a piece of the Lincoln Highway.” Instead, workers in Canton, Ohio, a city of 78,000, found original bricks in 2008 while reconstructing city streets. Brian Cassler of Canton took on a project of cleaning, organizing and palletizing the [2,200] bricks from the famous highway.

Cassler, along with trucker Tim Wunsch of Fort Morgan, Colo., delivered the load of pavers to the archway Sunday. “The city of Canton donated the bricks to the archway to be used in the display,” O’Brien said. “The bricks had been under other construction, and they were dirty and in a huge pile. They needed to be cleaned up and scraped before they could be hauled here.” Cassler, who took on the project as part of his Eagle Scout requirements, spent several months preparing the bricks. Cassler’s father runs the Lincoln Highway Trading Post in Canton.

Check out highway merchandise at the Lincoln Highway Trading Post online store.

The Omaha World-Herald also ran a feature story about the project.

Tags: archway museum, brick pavers, Canton OH, Eagle Scout project, historic highway, historic preservation, I-80, Kearney NE, Lincoln Highway, preserving brick roadway

This entry was posted on January 5, 2010 at 1:33 pm and is filed under highways, history, Lincoln Highway, museum, Road trip, transportation, travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.