The Somerset Daily Americanreports that Pennsylvania’s Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor has been selected by the national LHA to receive the Educator of the Year Award at its forthcoming annual conference.
Executive Director Olga Herbert will accept this award on June 25 in Dixon, Ill. The award is a result of the organization’s Roadside Giants of the Lincoln Highway project with five career and technology students and community members from Greensburg, Ligonier, Somerset, Everett and Chambersburg. The award also recognizes the development and distribution of The Lincoln Highway Road Trip Board Game, which reflects the 200-mile corridor and its attractions. The board game was given to 68 middle schools along the highway.
Mike Buettner sent along a May 9 clipping from The Lima News about a new Lincoln Highway pillar in Ohio. Dedicated on May 1, 2010, near Williamstown, it stands where an original one had been set in 1930. The Eagle Creek Historical Organization (ECHO) planned the dedication with a meeting of the state’s LHA chapter. The pillar now overlooks the intersection of U.S. 68 and the fomer Lincoln Highway exit to the town. Photo courtesy ECHO.
The Kearney Hubreported on the Lincoln Highway Association’s plans to celebrate the road’s centennial in the Nebraska city, including new signage.
“This is something that we have wanted to accomplish for a number of years, and it’s wonderful to see the signs up representing the history that once passed through our community,” said Sarah Focke of the Kearney Visitors Bureau.
The visitors bureau has been working with several other Kearney organizations to erect the 12 signs and to lay the groundwork for the Lincoln Highway Association’s 2013 convention in Kearney.
The markers, with the letter “L” and red and blue bands, are going up along Highway 30, which passes east to west through Kearney.
A full article was in the May 26 Hub print edition.
The next four Lincoln Highway Interpretive Murals in Illinois will be on display at ShawCraft Signs, 7727 Burden Road, Machesney Park TODAY from noon to 5:00 p.m.
Recently a mural was installed in Dixon to tell the story of the 1919 Military Convoy as it traveled cross-country, including a young Dwight Eisenhower. The mural tells the story of the convoy stopping in downtown Dixon to lunch on the courthouse lawn. You can view a cool slideshow created by Jay Allen of Shawcraft to see the mural come to life.
The four murals in production will be installed along the Illinois Lincoln Highway National Scenic Byway in northern Illinois. The murals are going up in 40 communities, and so far include Rochelle, Creston, DeKalb, Aurora, Joliet, Cortland, Genoa, Oregon, and Dixon.
The one set for New Lenox focuses on a 1920s dance hall moved to make way for the highway in 1924. University Park’s will tell the story of the Van Buren sisters who in 1916 became the first women to “solo” the highway on their Indian motorcycles.
Two stories tell two different tales of Lincoln Cafes located along the Lincoln Highway in Iowa.
The Cedar Rapids Gazette reports that “Matt Steigerwald, owner and chef of the Lincoln Cafe in Mount Vernon, has retained his title as the Midwest region’s ‘Prince of Porc’ after winning the Cochon 555 competition for the second straight year…. Cochon means ‘pig’ in French. The competition features five chefs, five pigs and five winemakers in 10 cities. The chefs are challenged to use a whole pig to create a series of dishes.”
As the murder trial continues for the owner of the Lincoln Cafe in Belle Plaine, Iowa, LHA director Van Becker reports that the well known restaurant still sits idle and nothing inside has been touched for months.
A colorful roadside attraction along the Lincoln Highway in western California is finally being demolished after closing in 2007.
The Lodi News-Sentinel reports that Pollardville, “once home to staged gunfights, Vaudeville plays and juicy fried chicken, was systematically demolished Tuesday morning.” The site included a ghost town that featured the set of the 1957 film “The Big Country,” with actors portraying bank robbers and sheriffs, the Pollardville Palace Showboat Dinner Theater, and the Chicken Kitchen, formerly the Polynesian-themed Islander Restaurant from Stockton.
The odors from the machine’s diesel engine served as a sharp contrast to the former aromas of mashed potatoes and comfort food Pollardville’s restaurants were once known for. The creaking of the structures collapsing was balanced by the sound of the cars quickly zipping past on Highway 99
Only hint of good news?? The company that handled the demolition said the 50-foot Pollardville sign will remain until someone buys the property and decides what to do with it.
Here’s a story from Sauk Valley Newspapers (Dixon-Sterling, IL), April 6, 2010:
DIXON – The City Council on Monday approved two lease agreements for painting a mural that will be at Galena and River roads. The mural, part of a series of Lincoln Highway Association projects, will re-create members of the first Army Transcontinental Motor Convoy lunching on the lawn of the Old Lee County Courthouse.
“That’s going to be a really nice mural,” Mayor Jim Burke said.
He appointed a three-person committee 6 months ago to work with the Lincoln Highway Association.
One lease agreement calls for the mural to be painted on the Pattie Hummel Photography and Dixon Tourism building at 106 W. River St. The other is for use of adjacent property on Galena Avenue during the mural’s painting.
“We want it up by the Fourth of July, and even June,” Burke said, adding that Lincoln Highway Association members will be in Dixon June 22-26 for their national conference.
In July 1919, the Army convoy made a historic cross-country trek from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco. It stopped in Dixon for lunches made by residents, according to the Dixon Telegraph’s archives of July 22, 1919.
Van & Bev Becker of Iowa sent a reminder that it was 20 years ago today that George Preston appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson to tell some of his endless stores about the Lincoln Highway.
The March 20 Cedar Rapids Gazette mentioned it in the “Times of Our Lives” column by Jim DeLong, along with the above photo by Drake Hokanson:
20 years ago: 1990
March 23: Belle Plaine resident George Preston said he was treated “just like the President of the United States” when he appeared on the “Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson.
Known for his entertaining stories of the Lincoln Highway, the 79-year-old Belle Plaine native at one time operated a gas station on the highway adorned with advertising signs from the 1920s and 1930s.
A family posted their home video of a road trip in Utah, crossing Fisher Pass on the Lincoln Highway while on their way to Simpson Spring. This was one of the shortcuts sanctioned by the LHA. They even stop briefly at the new monument to Carl Fisher. UPDATE: Sorry, the video has been tagged private.
Illinois Lincoln Highway Coalition unveiled two more of the 40 Interpretive Murals being installed along the Illinois Lincoln Highway National Scenic Byway and its corridor. The two are in Cortland and Genoa, the latter never on the route but nonetheless being recognized as being within the highway’s corridor of influence. Both murals feature “The Good Roads Movement.”
The Cortland mural, at 55 West Lincoln Highway, showcases dirt and gravel roads evolving into concrete. The Genoa mural, at 232 West Main Street, depicts road dragging contests. According to ILHC:
After receiving a National Scenic Byway Grant from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and an Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, Bureau of Tourism, Attraction Development (TAP) Grant, ILHC worked with our vendor, Jay Allen of ShawCraft Signs, to make this project come to life.
Each of the 40 communities is asked to designate representatives to work with ILHC on this project, as well as secure a building site for the mural, research stories and images linking their community to Lincoln Highway and agree to provide maintenance and preservation of the mural. Each mural is valued at $10,000. Upon completion of this project, a print piece will be created highlighting each interpretive mural and gazebo (16 of them from a recently completed project) with a map and small description of each.
You can view images of the progress HERE and HERE as slideshows or individually.
Click the map above for a full-size view of the Lincoln Highway.
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