LINCOLN HIGHWAY NEWS IS A BLOG BY BRIAN BUTKO
Roadside and Route 66 enthusiasts Emily Priddy and Ron Warnick recently took a 10-day road trip that Emily chronicled on her Red Fork State of Mind blog. She sent me news updates including that volunteers were stripping the World’s Largest Teapot in Chester, WV, with scrapers, heat guns, and blowtorches as part of an Eagle Scout project.
Above you’ll see they also visited two excellent roadside attractions in east-central PA: the Lincoln Motor Court east of Bedford, and the giant Coffee Pot on the edge of downtown. Then they filled up at Dunkle’s Gulf, a rare art deco gem still in the same family—and still pumping gas!
Emily said their goal was to see Ryne Sandberg managing the Lehigh Valley IronPigs in Allentown, so she and Ron (who pens the Route 66 News blog, which inspired this one!) headed east on the Lincoln Highway:
I fell in love with the farmland of Iowa; the vibrant energy of Chicago; the charming downtowns of Goshen, Ind., and Van Wert, Ohio; the giant teapot in Chester, W. Va.; the winding mountain roads of rural Pennsylvania; and the ethnic neighborhoods and skinny townhouses with old men killing time on their front stoops in the narrow side streets of Allentown.
To follow their trip, start at redforkhippie.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/go-the-distance then use the calendar to keep following, or just go to redforkhippie.wordpress.com and read up from the bottom!
Tags: Coffee Pot building, giant teapot, highway history, historic highway, Lincoln Highway, Pennsylvania, Road trip, roadside attraction, Route 66, travel, West Virginia
Lincoln Highway News 
July 11, 2011 at 8:31 pm |
Was in Chester on July 1 and told that the Teapot’s spout was replaced with a new one using the old spout as a pattern. The Teapot was completed in time for the 4th of July, including the bright red lettering and stripes. I reviewed Rick Sebak’s LH documentary, recently, and noted that in the last scene a former boy scout, Bernie Queneau, now in his 90s, who helped plant cement LH markers in 1928, was shown checking out The World’s Largest Teapot, and now we have a scout restoring it. Cool stuff!
July 14, 2011 at 3:15 pm |
That was Bernie Queneau – who turns 99 today! Pic here of him at the Teapot:
http://brianbutko.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/queneaus-markers-quite-an-80th-anniversary/
July 14, 2011 at 4:07 pm |
Happy Birthday Bernie!
Susan Badgley, who offered to show Rick Sebak and crew inside the Teapot that day, was inducted into the Chester Hall of Fame this month for “dedicated civic volunteer work for the city.” Congratulations Susan!
July 19, 2011 at 10:55 am |
Just talked to Bernie yesterday – hit a couple snags this summer but still chuggin along!