The Salt Lake Tribuneran a feature story (and the photo below) about the retirement of Jay Banta as manager of Fish Springs National Wilflife Refuge, an oasis along the Lincoln Highway in dusty central Utah. Banta, long-time LHA member and membership director, has managed the preserve for the past 19 years. He’s also become an authority on fabled rancher and auto-service provider John Thomas, who pulled motorists from quagmires a century ago.
Jay Banta, known for his long beard, strong opinions and passion for all things wild, is calling it a career this week, exactly to the day he came to the most remote national wildlife refuge in the lower 48 states as its manager. How far off the beaten track is Fish Springs? Consider that the only way to reach the refuge is on a dirt road along a path that once served as the route for the Pony Express, the first transcontinental telegraph and the Lincoln Highway. The dirt roads are so bad that Banta always purchased lifetime warranties on tires, shocks and mufflers.
After working at Fish Springs as a seasonal employee in 1981 and 1982, Banta dreamed of coming back to the 17,992-acre oasis in the desert. It was established as a refuge in 1959 to provide habitat for migrating and wintering birds. “I think some people are possessed by this place,” he said. “I was possessed.”…
Banta has built a new house in Torrey where he plans to retire. He has part-time work lined up, including working as a barista to support his coffee habit.
In a follow-up to my post of Oct. 23, 2009, about the former Penndel airplane restaurant — once a well-known roadside attraction along the Lincoln Highway in eastern Pennsylvania — another blogger at bethanybroadcast.blogspot.com dug deeper to report this:
Even cooler, upon some research, I discovered [here, a link to this blog was listed] that the plane was restored, but contrary to the source [since corrected plus check the comments], it’s not in working order. “The aircraft, along with the others in our collection, are accessioned under the National Museum of the United States Air Force which require the aircraft to not be in a working condition,” said one commenter who claimed to work at the Air Mobility Command Museum where the plane is located.
Bethany also listed this video link of the airplane restaurant still in operation in the 1990s:
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.
Mike Buettner reports that LHA member Larry Webb of Van Wert, Ohio, has been honored with a Jefferson Award for his many years of volunteer service. An article in The Lima News mentions his work with both the local historical society and the Lincoln Highway. The nomination was made by LHA members Art and Connie Weber, also of Van Wert.
Mike sent this photo from the dedication of the Ohio’s Lincoln Highway Historic Byway in April 2004: “The ribbon-cutting was in Van Wert, appropriately, because Larry and Kriss Salters (also with scissors) were the two people who did the most to make that happen, processing a lot of paperwork with ODOT to make the thing a reality.”
The Iowa amateur radio operators who for the last two years have operated a summer “special event” radio station celebrating 95 and then 96 years along the Lincoln Highway have banded together under the name Lincoln Highway Amateur Radio Group (LH-ARG). They applied to the Federal Communications Commission for a special call sign to use during on-the-air club operations and they now hold the unique call sign: NY2SF — that is, ”New York to San Francisco, from the eastern terminus to the western terminus of the Lincoln Highway.
Key officers of the new LH-ARG are Van & Bev Becker, LHA Life Members. As in the past, the group plans to team with the Benton County Amateur Radio Club to operate another special event station celebrating 97 Years along the Lincoln Highway from Youngville Station the weekend immediately before the 2010 Lincoln Highway Association Conference in Dixon, Illinois. Last year’s special event spread the word of the Lincoln Highway to almost 1,000 different stations in 3 countries.
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.
Author Lee Whiteley will present “Old Trails of Northern Colorado: From Foot Paths to Interstate” at 7 p.m. tonight, March 8, at the Loveland Museum/Gallery, 503 N. Lincoln Ave., Loveland, Colorado. The slide show, sponsored by the Loveland Historical Society, will revisit the Trappers’ Trail, Cherokee Trail, Overland Trail, several auto trails, and the Lincoln Highway’s controversial routing through the state. The program is open to the public; donations are accepted. Call Sharon Danhauer at (970) 290-0169 for details.
Whiteley and his wife Jane are experts on the auto trails through Colorado, including the Llncoln Highway; they wrote the book below to coincide with the LHA conference there in 2007.
My editor, Kyle Weaver, has asked a number of times if there are enough haunted places along the Lincoln Highway to fill a book. I know of many rumors but only a couple stories (and ghosts) jump out. How about it — do you know of any good ghost stories from the Lincoln Highway?
PS: Today’s blog title is a reference to a song by Buddy Nutt that I love, “Goin All the Way (on the Lincoln Highway).” To hear an extended demo of the one heard in Rick Sebak’s PBS special about the Lincoln Highway, CLICK HERE.
About 200 people are expected to participate in the Lincoln Highway Bridge Festival 5K Run/Walk in Tama, Iowa, on Saturday, May 15, 2010. The run is part of the annual bridge festival May 13–15 that will include a carnival, ice cream social, street dance, pancake breakfast, and parade. The small concrete span that’s the focus of events is the most famous bridge along the coast-to-coast Lincoln Highway, with its side rails cast to spell out “Lincoln Highway.”
The run starts at 8 am. For more information, contact Amy Ridout at ridout@iowatelecom.net or (641) 484-3984. For more about the festival, visit www.tamatoledo.com/calendar.html/.
Wyoming’s Uinta County Heraldreports 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.
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