LINCOLN HIGHWAY NEWS IS A BLOG BY BRIAN BUTKO
The electronic highway is akin to the early network of roads in the US: exciting changes happen daily but there’s still lots of work that needs done; you can guess that I’ve had some computer problems lately! To get back on track, click on Southwest Iowa News for an interesting article on recent renovations at Harrison County Museum/Welcome Center in western Iowa. A description of what you’ll find at the center follows this image of the Loess Hills overlook.
Phase I of the project included the Lincoln Highway surface demonstration – showing how the surface of the Lincoln Highway changed from dirt to gravel, to brick etc. It includes bricks from the streets of Missouri Valley that had been stored at the museum prior to the tornado that hit in 1999 and were saved for future use. Also included in the expansion are Lincoln Highway interpretive panels, an auditorium showing films on the Loess Hills and Lincoln Highway, a children’s transportation play scape next to a cabin court picnic area, a scenic overlook observation platform, among other signage.
LINCOLN HIGHWAY NEWS IS A BLOG BY BRIAN BUTKO
PBS producer Rick Sebak wrote to say that the premier of the new HBO series Boardwalk Empire, about the arrival of Prohibition and the growth of organized crime, featured a Lincoln Highway sign.
Young Al Capone was driving a load of stolen liquor to Chicago when the sign went by: “LINCOLN HIGHWAY” with “Chicago 200 Miles” just under that. It was square in shape, navy blue in color, probably metal on a roadside pole.
When the show rebroadcast, Rick took a photo of his TV screen for us! LH fans will recognize that the sign is pure fiction but is based on real-life state-line markers produced in 1917, such as this one from the LHA archives showing the border of Nebraska and Wyoming.
LINCOLN HIGHWAY NEWS IS A BLOG BY BRIAN BUTKO
A Des Moines, Iowa, TV station picked up on the story of the 1959 film showing US 30 in Iowa. WHO-TV channel 13 filed a report centered on the complex of gas, food, and lodging at Niland’s Corner in Colo, Iowa, which is seen in a screen shot in my report of the film. Scott Berka, Colo City Clerk, who is instrumental in keeping the buildings going, is briefly interviewed at the Colo Motel, a Lincoln Highway classic!
View the video HERE. Note it starts with a brief advertisement.
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.”
A historical marker for the Lincoln & Dixie highways will be dedicated on Saturday, October 2, 2010, at 10:00 a.m. EDT at the southwest corner of Washington and Michigan streets in South Bend, Indiana. All are invited to join a reception and program immediately following at the American Trust Place – Blue Gallery, 101 N. Michigan St. The marker notes the significance of the Lincoln Highway (Washington St.) and Dixie Highway (Michigan St.) intersecting at this corner.
Please RSVP to Joyce Chambers (574) 272-5374 by September 27. Parking is available on the street or behind the American Trust Place. Enter through Woodward Court on Colfax Street between Michigan and Main Streets
This marker is made possible through the Indiana Historical Bureau in collaboration with the GFWC/IFC Progress Club of South Bend, Indiana Lincoln Highway Association, and the City of South Bend.
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.
“Traveling the Lincoln Highway” will be presented tonight at the Plainfield Public Library by Dave Clark, known to Route 66 fans for his Windy City tours and books. “Travel back in time as you take a virtual tour of the first automobile trail marked from coast-to-coast. The story of the Lincoln Highway combines nostalgia and history highlighting modern sites in Illinois, Indiana and Iowa.” A display on the Lincoln Highway is set upon on the library’s main floor. The library is at 15025 S. Illinois St. Plainfield, (815) 436-6639 or www.plainfield.lib.il.us/.
The Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor is sponsoring a one-day bus trip along the Lincoln Highway from Greensburg to Everett, Pa., (and back) on Monday, October 11, 2010. The “ultimate road trip” will be guided by Lou DeRose, the ultimate Lincoln Highway fan, and Olga Herbert, the Executive Director of the LHHC. Both know this route inside and out and will share little-known facts about this country’s first coast-to-coast route.
In addition to photo ops at four Roadside Giants and four Lincoln Highway murals, bus guests will be treated to a lunch buffet at the Omni Bedford Springs Resort followed by a private tour. The day begins with a private guided tour of the historic Compass Inn in Laughlintown led by Innkeeper Jim Koontz.
After lunch they’ll head to Everett for a photo op of another Roadside Giant followed by visits to Bedford’s art deco Dunkle’s Gulf Station and the 1927 Coffee Pot. Dinner is at the historic Jean Bonnet Tavern with time to browse the Cabin Gift Shoppe.
Departure is from either Greensburg’s Hempfield Square or Latrobe 30 Shopping Plaza.
Make your reservation TODAY at www.LHHC.org where you can pay online or call (724) 238-9030. The travel package ($115 per person) includes the guided tours of Compass Inn and Bedford Springs, lunch at Bedford Springs, dinner at Jean Bonnet Tavern, and a photo memento. Sorry, no refunds.
The Iowa Lincoln Highway Association’s Third Annual Motor Tour of the Lincoln Highway across Iowa is about to launch. This year’s tour is themed as “From the Wide River to the Loess Hills” because it begins with a pre-tour event on Thursday August 26 at the Wide River Winery in Clinton and concludes on Sunday August 29 at the Loess Hills Winery in Crescent, Iowa. The route travels nearly 330 miles across Iowa. If you’d like to see some of the antique cars participating, or meet some of the entrants, chec the schedule at lincolnhighwayassoc.org/iowa/tour/2010/itinerary.pdf/.
Project Gutenberg, the first producer of free electronic books, offers more than 33,000 free ebooks of previously published titles, all digitized with the help of thousands of volunteers. Now available is an early road book, Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway by Effie Price Gladding. Other ebook sites have already taken the file and reposted it but without the images (or I assume permission), and PG warns that these are most likely spammers. You’ll find the safe original here: www.gutenberg.org/files/33320/33320-h/33320-h.htm
As I wrote in my Greetings from the Lincoln Highway book:
Effie Gladding had just returned from three years touring the world when she departed San Francisco on April 21, 1914. She and her husband Thomas first drove the El Camino Real 600 miles south before turning and meeting the Lincoln at Stockton. In a 262-page book she titled Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway, she doesn’t reach the focus of her title till page 108, then detours off it for another 47 pages near the end, skipping most of Ohio and Pennsylvania. But it was the first full-size hardback to discuss transcontinental travel, as well as the first to mention the Lincoln Highway.
Click the link above or go to Project Gutenberg’s main page for the book for other ways to download the text and images.
Click the map above for a full-size view of the Lincoln Highway.
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