It won’t ship till after the show airs nationally, but A Ride Along the Lincoln Highway DVD is available for pre-order from PBS.
The DVD includes 5 extra segments as listed on the back cover below plus we’ll have more information about them later this week. Above is a screen shot from the end of the program; note the cover has changed slightly since the program was finished, as seen in these images provided by producer Rick Sebak.
Rollin Southwell, aka The Man From Utah, has started a blog to complement his efforts to promote a monument to Lincoln Highway catalyst Carl Fisher. He has been working for the past decade to have the monument erected at Fisher Pass in Utah, 32 miles SW of Tooele. He’s long had a web site that explains that a monument was to be built by the state when the Lincoln Highway was rerouted in 1918 to a straighter path across the Salt Lake Desert.
As Rollin recounts, “Carl G. Fisher donated $25,000.00 to the State of Utah in 1918 to make a short cut on the Transcontinental Lincoln Highway cutting out fifty miles of the worst road conditions then existing on the Lincoln Highway.” He has part of the contract online too:
And Johnson Pass shall hereafter be known as Fisher Pass, or by such other designation as Mr. Carl G. Fisher shall hereafter determine.
Said Seilbering and Fisher are hereby given authority to construct, at their own expense, at the termini of, or at such other places along such sections, suitable markers, monuments or arches for the designation of said respective sections in connection with the work herein referred to.
Rollin says progress is finally being made on permits for the site. He adds, “If anyone has some material about Fisher Pass or the Goodyear Cutoff, feel free to leave it on the blog. We can add it very easy. Photos too. To start getting the blog rolling, we talk about old Betsy and her car connection to Fisher Pass.” Check it out at www.rgsouthwellblog.com/.
Al Pfingstl reports that his new book about the Lincoln Highway in New Jersey is available from him for $19.95 + $3.00 shipping. That’s because Al is a one-man operation — writer, designer, publisher, and bookseller. His book arrived and it’s packed with info about towns, buildings, monuments, and markers. It’s broken into chapters by county and features some maps courtesy of MapQuest. Note that it does not include roadside businesses such as motels and diners but is rather a look at local history.
Al Pfingstl
83 Princeton Rd
Parlin, NJ 08859
(732) 721 9307
apfingstl@optonline.net
Historic New Carlisle Inc. is teaming with the Indiana Lincoln Highway Association Inc. to celebrate the original route of the Lincoln Highway through New Carlisle on Saturday, October 11, 2008.
Lincoln Highway Day in New Carlisle (about 14 miles west of South Bend, Indiana) will feature street banners, a walking tour of the town’s National Register District, and at 2 p.m. EST the dedication of a Lincoln Highway kiosk at City Hall, 124 E. Michigan St. (old Lincoln Highway). A reception will follow at the Inn at the Old Republic (304 E. Michigan St.) until 4 p.m. Lincoln Highway memorabilia will be on exhibit, and the Gift Shop will have LH merchandise for sale.
The Indiana LHA received grant funds from the national LHA to underwrite the fabrication of Lincoln Highway interpretive kiosks in New Carlisle and Warsaw, Indiana. The kiosks will share the heritage of the Lincoln Highway with thousands of visitors each year.
For more information, contact INLHA Secretary Joyce Chambers at (574) 276-0878 or click the flyer below to get the full-size pdf:
The California chapter of the Lincoln Highway Association reports that Michael Kaelin and Gary Kinst presented a new Historic Lincoln Highway sign to the new owners of the Mountain House, Josie Alvarez and her mother Sara Pina. Sara hopes they can restore the roadhouse to its splendor of 1880-1925, the dates of the original resort being built and its burning. Below, Michael presents the sign to Sara and Josie.
This is the Mountain House in 1910 – click the image to see it larger:
The Mountain House is at the east end of Livermore/Altamont Pass in Alameda County at 16784 W Grantline Road, 4 miles W of Tracy and 6 miles E of Altamont Summit. Its origins stretch back to the gold rush days and are detailed in the July 2008 issue of The Traveler, the chapter’s newsletter. Stop in, have a drink, and say hi to Josie and Sara.
Al Pfingstl, LHA NJ Chapter Director, has just completed Sixty-Three Miles of History: The Lincoln Highway in New Jersey. Al says it took him a year to compile, edit, format, and print the book.
“This endeavor was at the urging of my wife, after the passing of my dog ‘Winter’ who was my best friend, research assistant, and traveling partner along the Lincoln Highway. We both traveled on and visited sites as far west as Bedford, PA.”
We’ll let you know when the book, published by Winter Haven Publishing, is available for purchase.
Last summer, we honored Bernie Queneau here at the Heinz History Center with a proclamation from the mayor of Pittsburgh and the LHA. That same day, PBS producer Rick Sebak launched the filming of his LH special by capturing Bernie’s remarks about traveling the Lincoln Highway in 1928 (below, in front of his 16-year-old self holding the CA flag).
Bernie — now 96 years old — is the Lincoln Highway’s most prestigious ambassador, having been on the Boy Scout safety tour of 1928, which also served to promote the Lincoln Highway and the forthcoming marking of the coast-to-coast road with concrete posts/markers.
Yesterday, Rick and crew met Bernie and wife Esther, herself a former president of the LHA. It was 80 years to the day that Boy Scouts across the US fanned out to plant the concrete posts into the ground at corners and main intersections along the Lincoln. Rick recounts it best himself….
We had a great day on the Lincoln Highway with Esther and Bernie Queneau. I realized it was 80 years since Bernie made his cross-country promotional tour for the Lincoln Highway. Meanwhile, we tried to agree on a day when we could go for a ride, and today, Monday, Labor Day, was the only day when Bob and Glenn and I were all available as well as Esther and Bernie.
Then in Hanoverton, when we pulled to look at the replica marker, Esther mentioned that the markers had been erected on the same day, September 1, 1928. That was 80 years ago today! By chance, we were observing the 80th anniversary of the concrete posts with a drive into Ohio. It was glorious.
We actually had great luck all day. We met Bernie and Esther at the Teapot in Chester, WV, at 10 AM, and while getting a few shots, a car pulled over and Susan Badgley who helps take care of the landmark got out and offered to show us inside. How could we pass up the opportunity? Susan’s mother remembered the pot back 65 years.
Susan’s husband Tom is a toll taker on the Newell Bridge, and she offered us some free tickets to make several crossings, trying to get some shots of Esther and Bernie crossing the river into Ohio. [That’s Bernie below driving his Buick.]
We ended the day driving back and forth on Baywood Street west of Minerva. What a beautiful old stretch of red brick road! We thought we had driven into an Edward Hopper painting. Several nice old painted markers on telephone poles, and two quick interviews with our subjects. They are amazing.
Above: Rick Sebak photographed Bernie Queneau driving the LH via Baywood Street in eastern Ohio – CLICK to see it larger.
Gary Kinst sent these photos of Auburn Boulevard in Sylvan Corners, California, showing a new Lincoln Highway commemorative sign. When the corner was redeveloped, a US 40 sign was incorporated into the architecture but nothing to reflect the LH, so efforts were taken to rectify that and a new LH sign is prominently displayed.
Fellow author and blogger Jason Togyer writes that while digging up material about his forthcoming book on the G.C. Murphy Company, he spotted this cartoon in the Friday, Oct. 17, 1930, Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph.
The reference here is to the rerouting of the Lincoln Highway through West Virginia, changing the route west of Pittsburgh, PA. The original routing along the Ohio River to East Liverpool, Ohio, had long been congested and waiting to be bypassed. But that’s the odd thing — the LH came through Pittsburgh in 1913. The LHA board of directors officially changed the route in December 1927 to what was named US 30 through Crafton, Clinton, and Imperial, into through Chester, WV, and across the Ohio River to East Liverpool). So why was a cartoonist welcoming the road to the city in 1930?
The Eastern Terminus of the Lincoln Highway has never been marked – it was always simply Times Square – but Jerry Peppers is determined to change that. Here he is taping a temporary paper sign to his favorite concrete post at Broadway and 42nd Street during filming for Rick Sebak’s upcoming special. Rick also sent an updated photo that shows him at the intersection, which you’ll find at the end of this post.
The Western Terminus in San Francisco has been marked in various ways over the decades. Today it has a reproduction of a 1928 concrete post – click here to see read about Denny Gibson’s visit a couple weeks ago.
Click the map above for a full-size view of the Lincoln Highway.
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