LINCOLN HIGHWAY NEWS IS A BLOG BY BRIAN BUTKO
Don’t forget to follow Lincoln Highwayman, aka Jim Devitt, as he continues his trip westward on the Lincoln Highway. After some troubles with his Ford Model A, he’s cruising through Indiana. Follow along at blog.lincolnhighwayman.com/. Click the image below to see LARGER the short segment of vintage Lincoln Highway located between upgraded LH (seen to the right) and US 30 (off camera to the left)
YOU WILL LOVE this video of central Iowa’s US 30, filmed in 1959 to show congestion and the need for road improvements. Highway Relocations was created by the Iowa State Highway Commission (ISHC), now IDOT, to show the downside of gas stations, rest stops, and the skinny two-lanes they populate. Filming started just east of State Center at the junction of Iowa 64 (now Iowa 330) and US 30 (the Lincoln Highway) and continued west along US 30 through State Center, Colo, Nevada, and Ames, ending just west of Boone. The film is 16 minutes long and covers 55 miles. {Note: Please read the comments for more info on the cars and the year it was filmed.]
Amazingly, most of it was filmed by a camerman perched atop a ladder connected to a car and extending approximately 22 feet in the air above the roadway! The camera, on a 1958 Ford Ranch Wagon, followed and filmed a 1958 Plymouth Fury. “The unidentified cameraman had the precarious task of trying to hold the camera steady and stay on the ladder, notably without a safety harness or other protective device.”
“As part of the Iowa DOT’s effort to preserve and archive its historical resources, the original Highway Relocations 16mm film was recently professionally cleaned and restored to its original film quality.”
PBS producer Rick Sebak passes on a reminder of a one-a year opportunity September 15-18, 2010. From a release: “Call it a hunch, but you’ve long suspected that when it’s really on the line, you could race a motorized bar stool across some salt flats faster than anyone. And soon, you’ll have your chance to prove it. Once a year, the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association puts on a crazy drag race between old VW vans, go-karts and, if you insist, regular old race cars.” Read more online at the Utah Salt Flats Racing Association and check out photos of past events.
PennDOT District 11 is advising motorists that Route 30 (Lincoln Highway) will be closed in both directions in the area of the Greensburg Pike overpass in North Versailles Township, Allegheny County, during the weekend of Aug. 27-30. Motorists will be detoured onto Greensburg Pike — the original Lincoln Highway.
The $4.5 million project will replace the bridge that carries Greensburg Pike over Route 30. The project includes removing the existing steel bridge and replacing it with a new single span composite steel multi-girder bridge. The closure will run from 8 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 27, continuously through 5 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 30. Read more HERE.
Mike Hocker, Executive Director of the Ohio Lincoln Highway Historic Byway, writes, “I drove by Palmantier’s Motel near Minerva yesterday and saw a sign for an auction Aug 11th. I guess there is nothing else we can do.” The beautiful 9-unit motel is within sight of the famous stretch of Baywood Road paved in red bricks (bottom center of photo).
Palmantier’s Motel, opened 1947, was purchased five years ago by Scott Segeti, “lured to these parts by the beauty of nearby farm fields, grazing cattle, grassy meadows, chirping birds, fresh air and an opportunity to be his own boss.” By last year, slow business forced him to put the motel, swimming pool, two houses, and 3.25 acres for sale at $425,000.
At the LHA conference I had the pleasure of meeting John and Joyce Jackson of Delaware, Ohio, who were following the Lincoln Highway westward using my LH Companion guidebook! What’s more impressive is they are stopping at every place mentioned AND getting signatures when they could!! Turns out they too have a blog that’s a fun-to-read adventure at blog.jacksonlhtour.com/. After driving from NYC to Indiana last year, they’ve added a 12-foot Ridgeline travel trailer to hitch to their Lincoln Town Car for 2010 as they head to the Pacific. Here they are on gravel Lincoln Highway between Ogden and Beaver, Iowa.
Here’s another nice article from The Canton Repository about the efforts of Brian Cassler to preserve a bit of the Lincoln Highway. As part of earning his Eagle Scout badge, Cassler cleaned and organized more than 2,000 bricks from Canton that will be used to recreate a portion of the Lincoln Highway at the Great Platte River Road Archway in Kearney, Nebraska. The archway will host the 2013 centennial conference of the Lincoln Highway Association.
“In 2007, when they (Canton) tore up Tusc (Tuscarawas Street), they found a couple thousand (original) bricks,” said the 14-year-old. “They gave them to the Eastern Lincoln Highway Association to do whatever they wanted to do with them.
“I found out about how the Great Platte River Road Archway wanted to recreate a portion of the Lincoln Highway, so I contacted them.”
The Bridger Valley Pioneer reported today on a public WYDOT meeting held April 27 at the Fort Bridger State Museum regarding an 80-year-old Lincoln Highway bridge that is becoming a danger.
The Blacks Fork Bridge on County Road 221, north of Fort Bridger, or the Lincoln Highway Bridge, is structurally unsound and can’t be brought up to safety standards without being removed and replaced….
Julie Francis, WYDOT archeologist, said the bridge was a concrete T-girder bridge built in 1921 under Federal Aid Project 17. The bridge was typical of bridges built at that period. The bridge included two spans so it was 160 feet long and 18.4 feet wide. She said there were also 3.5 miles of Lincoln Highway roadwork completed as part of the same project. She said the construction of the present bridge replaced a timber trestle bridge.
Wyoming’s Uinta County Herald reports that a Lincoln Highway-era bridge is being examined for possible replacement. The concrete span on County Road 221 north of Fort Bridger was built in 1921 on the Lincoln Highway. According to Laura Nowlin, historic preservation specialist at the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office, it is one of the oldest bridges on the Wyoming stretch of the famed coast-to-coast highway. However, Julie Francis, Wyoming DOT archeologist, said the bridge is in “extremely poor condition” and a proposal for replacing it has been prepared.
A story in the Omaha World-Herald has only a small but interesting Lincoln Highway connection. Harsh winter weather has created endless potholes in this eastern Nebraska city, including one at 42nd and Dodge Streets that has exposed a rail from the old city streetcar line and “bricks that were likely part of the Lincoln Highway.”
Click the map above for a full-size view of the Lincoln Highway.
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