PBS producer Rick Sebak received the first Gregory M. Franzwa award that recognizes the individual or group who does the most for the Lincoln Highway Association. Franzwa was a founder, past president, and long-time journal editor of the association.
Sebak’s 2008 program, A Ride Along the Lincoln Highway, greatly increased membership and interest in the road. Mindy Crawford sent the photo above showing Sebak with LHA secretary Sue Jacobson and president Bob Dieterich. Here’s a teaser to Sebak’s PBS program:
The 2009 Lincoln Highway conference was a lot of fun — so much so that I couldn’t keep up with this blog! Tuesday evening found us at dinner with special guest Emily Anderson, who along with copilot Christie Catania is retracing Alice Ramsey’s pioneering 1909 trip. That’s them below along with dad Richard Anderson, who built the car from parts.
But that’s not the only Alice Ramsey trip re-creation!
Dana McNair alerted me that she and Dorothy Grace are also driving much of the Lincoln Highway in commemoration of Alice Ramsey’s 1909 trip. Dorothy is driving a 1913 Model T and Dana is driving a 1909 Cadillac.
We stopped for the best chocolate cake in the world at Niland’s Cafe in Colo, Iowa, and got to put our cars in the gas station for photos. We stood at the confluence of the Jefferson and Lincoln highways. How cool is that!
Friday morning found them eating breakfast in Missouri Valley, Iowa, when they saw Emily drive by! You can follow their journey at aliceramsey-theroadtrip.blogspot.com/.
UPDATE
Dana just sent this update from Nebraska:
We are so enjoying this trip. We are definitely driving without fanfare. We are just having fun, stopping to visit folks who have been kind enough to offer us lodging or a visit. Camping or fixing cars along the way, sometimes under trees by the side of the road, sometimes in truck stops, it all depends on the autos and whether they are having a good day or not. We have met some great folks, and as it is so low key it is very intimate. We have a lot of new friends in cafes and truck stops.
Sometimes is does get a little discouraging to be confused with the Emily Anderson trip and we do hate to disappoint people but what we are doing does count in it’s own way and the purpose has always been just to drive the drive and have fun together. So, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your writing back to us, truly it makes us feel good about our trip that at least someone is keeping track of us besides our mothers.
I spent Monday driving across Ohio and Indiana, heading to the annual Lincoln Highway Assn. conference in South Bend. I followed many old stretches of the LH and took many photos — so many that the 6 hour trip took me 14 hours. my camera is overloaded, its batteries are dead, and my head is kinda hurting but it was a great time, I got great photos, and met some very nice people. Here are some photos from the trip.
The fifth and final project in the “Roadside Giants of the Lincoln Highway” series is an antique truck celebrating farming heritage. Designed by the Franklin County Career & Technology Center students in Chambersburg, the 1920 Selden Apple Truck replica truck is fully dimensional and features a steering column and bench seat plus wheels that spin. The 11-foot tall, 2-ton antique truck is located at Shatzer’s Fruit Market along U.S. 30 heading east. A dedication was held Tuesday, June 9, 2009.
The hood sign reads “Lincoln Highway Fruit Growers Serving Franklin County Since 1907.”
LHA director Jerry Peppers was at the launch on Tuesday of the 100th Anniversary Commemorative ride of Alice Huyler Ramsey’s historic 1909 cross country drive. He writes:
The team got underway at approximately 9:00 am in front of 1930 Broadway (67th Street across from Lincoln Center and about 1-1/4 mile north of the Eastern Terminus in Times Square). Unfortunately a thunderstorm had just passed through and it was still raining.
I did get to talk to Emily Anderson, the driver, and Christie Catanie, the navigator, and they are of course excited about their trip. They are looking forward to being at the LHA annual conference in South Bend next week. Even the gloomy day and the thought of driving an open car (the canvas top was put up but there are no side windows so the vehicle is essentially open), and the reporters and cameras in their faces did not seem to dampen their spirits.
The first photo shows Emily at the wheel (note the right hand drive) and Christie in the passenger seat as the car was pulling away from the curb. The second shows Emily being interviewed with her mother in the foreground (holding flowers).
The 1909 Maxwell is magnificently restored. When they stepped to the front to hand crank it to get it started and the engine sputtered to life, it was amazing even though it ran with so much valve clatter it sounded like some of the diesel trucks going by it on Broadway!
Below is a photo from their trip eastward to NYC. LHA president Bob Dieterich snapped Kathy Franzwa in the restored Maxwell in front of her house in Tooele, Utah. Her late husband Gregory Franzwa ublished the book Alice’s Drive, which reprints her tale of the trip plus he added his modern-day sleuthing of her route.
Alice Ramsey’s story was once well-known: on June 9, 1909, she and three female companions set off from NYC in a new, dark green Maxwell DA. She reached the Pacific 59 days later, becoming the first woman to drive coast-to-coast.
Alice’s Drive: Republishing Veil, Duster, and Tire Iron
by Alice Ramsey, Annotation and “Chasing Alice” by Gregory M. Franzwa
Patrice Press, 265 pp, 161 illustrations, 108 notes, index, softcover
ISBN 1-880397-56-0
$19.95 plus $4.95 s/h direct from Franzwa’s Patrice Press.
The Johstown Democratran a story about the recreation of the 1919 U.S. Army Transcontinental Motor Convoy being run by the Military Vehicles Preservation Association. The original trip covered 3,250 miles and took 62 days to complete. The 90th anniversary convoy departs Washington D.C., on Saturday, June 13, and will arrive in San Francisco 26 days later on July 8. Here are some of planned stops on Sunday, June 14:
Drive through McConnellsburg 8:30 am.
Old Bedford Village about 11 am – 2 pm.
Parade through Everett, Bedford, and Schellsburg.
Onto Somerset County and Flight 93 National Memorial.
Stop in Stoystown about 4:30; Main Street will be closed and a brief ceremony is planned at the Hite House.
Arrive at Westmoreland Mall in Greensburg about 6 pm, where there will be a display depicting the historical significance of the 1919 convoy.
NOTE: times are subject to change — and like the original convoy, I think that celebrations and traffic will constantly put them behind schedule.
The centennial recreation of Alice Ramsey’s pioneering trip across the U.S. has already garnered coverage in the LA Times, NY Times, and PR Web. In 1909, Ramsey became the first woman to drive across the U.S., accompanied by three female companions and publicity people from her carmaker, Maxwell. Much of the trip followed what would become the Lincoln Highway four years later.
Emily Anderson (right) is recreating the cross-country trip in a 1909 Maxwell over the same route. Emily and her group leave New York City on Tuesday, June 9, for a five week journey to San Francisco. They launch from 1930 Broadway, near Lincoln Center, at 9 am. For those who wish to visit, they will bring the car over the Queensboro Bridge around 6:30 am and be on Broadway by 7:30. They will stop in Tarrytown, New York, for a quick photo op at the old Maxwell Briscoe Motor Co. plant where Maxwells were built for many years.
Emily will be joined by friend and navigator Christie Catanie of Colorado. Also traveling in separate vehicles will be her dad Richard Anderson, who built the Maxwell from pieces, and his wife Margaret. Also along will be chief mechanic Tim Simonswa and his wife Barb.
You can track the journey at www.aliceramsey.org and click on the map marked “Follow Along.” They hope to visit the LHA conference in South Bend, Indiana, on June 16.
My Lincoln Highway Companion book hit Amazon and bookstore shelves a couple weeks ago. It’s literally a companion to my Greetings … book but also, I hope, a companion to anyone thinking of traveling the road. Reaction has been overwhelmingly kind, like this from LHA president Bob Dieterich:
This book is fantastic! The color maps are clear and easy to read. The photos are excellent. And the contents are superb. The places described in this book are unique and fascinating.
A couple tiny errors have shown up, one being the location of Stosh’s Barber Shop – the description correctly places it in Batavia, Illinois. So why in the photo caption did I write Rochelle?! Don’t know but if we produce a revised or updated edition, I’m ready.
Route 66 News also gave LHC a positive review — read it HERE. Ron Warnick kindly writes that it “truly shines with descriptions of choice motels and restaurants by Butko and a slew of contributors.”
He notes that some locales just don’t have people able to review motels or restaurants, most glaringly in Reno and Sparks, Nevada. This was surprising to me too but shows how the Lincoln Highway is still in the early stages of providing for modern tourists. Route 66 handles this with a volunteer program, Adopt a Hundred, that monitors places for inclusion in the Route 66 Dining and Lodging Guide.
For those considering buying it, Lincoln HIghway Companion does include both state maps plus regional maps that cover every mile of the road at 1″ to every seven miles. There are also selected city maps at 1″ = 1 mile.
A 20-foot tall, 1,600-pound steel quarter with George Washington’s profile is the newest of five Roadside Giants planned along Pennsylvania’s 200-mile Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor. The quarter is located east of Bedford, Pennsylvania, near the Down River Golf Course in Everett. It was dedicated last Wednesday to acknowledge students from Bedford County Technical Center who were involved in its design and creation. The sculpture was created at MDL Manufacturing in Bedford; owners Mari-Pat and Doug Lingsch invited the students into their plant.
The photo below shows Mari-Pat and Doug Lingsch, owners of MDL Manufacturing in Bedford. Leah R. Cominsky, LHHC Marketing/Project Manager, says, “They had a lot to do with the project in terms of allowing the students to work on laser cutting the details of the Giant at their facility, plus they helped the students to order the materials that they would need to complete the Giant. They are such great, kind-hearted people, and Mari-Pat was on the Community Committee for the school to help them along the way with the design of the quarter.”
Meetings for the project began in March 2008, said community committee member Karen Bowman. Finishing touches at the site, such as landscaping and stone, will be added in the fall by students….
It took about three days to build the form, one day for it to set and another day to pour concrete….
Assistance on this project was provided by New Enterprise Stone & Lime Co., BC Stone, SKE Design and Rockland Manufacturing.
For Wednesday’s dedication, student Chelsea Long of the tech center’s Culinary Arts project created a matching 3-D cake in the shape of the giant quarter with assistance from instructor Pattie Liebfreid.
Paving the Way: The National Park-to-Park Highway is 2-part program airing on PBS that recalls the journey of 12 motorists who followed the 5,000+ mile circular highway in 1920. The Park-to-Park Highway connected all 12 of the national parks at the time; the 1920 trip took 76 days. Leading the tour was famous AAA trails “pathfinder” Anton Westgard. Check local listings to see when it will air in your area.
ABOVE: Route map provided by Terry Coolidge, Wellspring Digital Studio.
ABOVE: Photo by A.G. Lucier, provided by John T. Hinckley Library, Northwest College, Powell, Wyoming.
Producer/director Brandon Wade told me that the video was inspired by Lee and Jane Whiteley, who wrote about the highway and the famous tour in their 2003 book, The Playground Trail: The National Park-to-Park Highway. Lee and Jane are known to Lincoln Highway fans for their pioneering work researching the LH route through Colorado, including a small but info-packed book, The Lincoln Highway in Colorado. To learn more about the film, visit pavingtheway.tv where you can also purchase the DVD for $24.95.
Click the map above for a full-size view of the Lincoln Highway.
Like this blog? You'll LOVE my books!Lincoln Highway Companion features detailed maps and places to eat and stay. Click the book to buy it on Amazon.
Click the Greetings book below to purchase the ultimate guide to the history and route of the Lincoln Highway!
Another fun book! The Ship Hotel: A Grand View along the Lincoln Highway recalls the greatest roadside attraction along the coast-to-coast road.
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The centennial recreation of Alice Ramsey’s pioneering trip across the U.S. has already garnered coverage in the 
My Lincoln Highway Companion book hit 
Lincoln Highway News 