Archive for October, 2012

Poster Commemorates Lincoln Hwy Centennial

October 29, 2012

LINCOLN HIGHWAY NEWS IS A BLOG BY BRIAN BUTKO
A new poster commemoratees the forthcoming centennial of the Lincoln Highway in 2013. The Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society Museum of Merrilville, Indiana, commissioned Mitch Markovitz to create the evocative image.

An article at nwitimes.com explains:

“We started this project more than a year ago,” said Dan Kleine, the project manager for the poster commissioning and a member of the Merrillville-Ross Township Historical Society board. “The whole idea was to build awareness that the Old Lincoln Highway is 73rd Avenue, just outside the museum’s front door.”

In his oil-on-canvas painting that is reproduced as a poster, Markovitz of Knox, creates a scene from 1929 when the Lincoln Highway was a major thoroughfare that led to Broadway and then north to Gary and Chicago….

Jeff Blair, Indiana’s national director on the Lincoln Highway Association, traveled from Leesburg, Ind., to witness the poster’s unveiling.

“Last year, I walked the Lincoln Highway west from Ohio to Illinois for charity. Next May, I’m going to walk east from Illinois to Ohio and I’ll pass right by here on the first day,” Blair said.

The article claims that the poster shows a 1929 Ford Model T, which is impossible. More likely it’s a Model A, though just as perplexing is why the image is said to portray the LH in 1929, a year after the LHA ceased active operations. Perhaps it was to include a 1928 concrete post, but that too is in an incorrect orientation, i.e., not facing the road.

Carl Fisher featured on Lynwood IL mural

October 12, 2012

LINCOLN HIGHWAY NEWS IS A BLOG BY BRIAN BUTKO
The Village of Lynwood, Illinois, sports the newest mural in the Illinois Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor’s series that spans the 179-mile Illinois byway corridor. Lynwood marks the eastern terminus to the Illinois portion of the Lincoln Highway. The mural wasinstalled October 10, 2012, at 21490 East Lincoln Highway, on Lynwood’s Senior/Youth Center building.

ILHC works with artist Jay Allen (above, installing the mural), owner of ShawCraft Sign Company; every mural is a hand painted, unique work of art.  Upon completion, the series will be one of the largest works of public art in the country. This mural depicts Carl G. Fisher, the “Father of the Lincoln Highway” and elements of his life that helped turn his dream of the first transcontinental highway into a reality.

For more information on the Illinois Lincoln Highway, places to see and things to do, stories of the highway’s significance and history, or to download an Illinois Lincoln Highway Visitor Guide, visit drivelincolnhighway.com. To see the mural larger, visit my Facebook page at facebook.com/groups/28162312417/.