Carrie Kreiger, who has lived 96 years along the Lincoln Highway, recently shared her memories with Mike Hocker, executive director of Ohio Lincoln Highway Historic Byway. Hocker collects stories of the highway as a way of preserving the its history. The story was retold in the Massillon Independent newspaper.
“Eighty years ago, I sat and watched them (build the roadway).
“They took part of our front yard to widen it to four lanes. We would watch those poor guys lay bricks all summer long.”
As a recent graduate of Washington High School, Kreiger said she and her siblings would get up early every day and sit on the front porch and watch the men lay bricks that would make the dirt road into a “singing” street.
“That is when I graduated from high school in 1930,” she recalled.
*Thanks to long-time diner and highway friend Rudy Turkal for the lead.
• Update to recent murder of Lincoln Cafe owner: No word on the cafe itself in Belle Plaine, Iowa, but bond was set at $500,000 each for three people accused, and at a preliminary hearing yesterday, arraignment was set for August 13 in Iowa County District Court. According to the Cedar Rapids Gazette, “Marengo Police Chief Galen Moser has refused to release how Bailey died and the weapon used to kill him. Police did, however, release autopsy results last week that confirmed Bailey’s death was a homicide.” According to MPC Newspapers, “Bailey and Frei purchased Bailey’s Lincoln Café in Belle Plaine in 2006. The business has not kept regular hours the last year or so, with customers often finding notes on the door indicating the café was closed due to emergency or medical reasons. News of the killing has left the café’s customers reeling.”
• On Wednesday, September 2 at 1:30 p.m, Jan Shupert-Arick, past president of the Lincoln Highway Association and past national director of the Indiana LHA, will talk about the famous road at the Center for History in South Bend, Indiana. She is author of the recently-published book, The Lincoln Highway Across Indiana, and also guest curator for the Center for History’s exhibit, Appeal to Patriots: The Lincoln Highway. A tour of the exhibit is part of the program. Admission is $3 and reservations are required by August 31. For information, call (574) 235-9664 or visit www.centerforhistory.org/.
• Sue Barr writes that “My colleague Dr David Heathcote and I are academics in London and teach at the Architectural Association School of Architecture and Middlesex University. We are working on a book on the world history of motorways and will come to the U.S. in September to look at the Lincoln Highway.”Photo by Rick Sebak
Anyone who has driven the Lincoln Highway near Lancaster, Pa. — especially east of the city on US 30 — knows that traffic congestion makes it near impossible to enjoy the road’s heritage. Now the Lancaster County Planning Commission has released an enhancement plan to address traffic, signage, and accessibility. You can view the PDF HERE.
The report states:
This project is the first step in implementing the Lancaster County Strategic Tourism Development Plan, adopted by the County Commissioners in 2005….
The Lincoln Highway is a high priority because:
• It’s a highly visible gateway into the city and surrounding countryside
• It’s an important part of the county’s economy
• It plays a key role in the county’s tourism “mix”
The publication lists the many problems and potential solutions. One challenge is that the area is known for rural and Amish attractions, but the crush of tourists and modern businesses has pushed out many farms and even the mid-century fabricated attractions.
In the 1990s, local officials cited tourist complaints that there was nothing to do after dark, when Amish-themed attractions closed. The response led to outlet malls, which have spawed more chain stores and wide highways, resulting in the disappearance of almost all vintage businesses and buildings. Accessing any of it is frustrating for tourists and commuters, not to mention horse-drawn buggies. It will be interesting to see if such growth can now be reined in.
LHA director Mike Buettner sent info and images from a Mid-Ohio Chapter/Lincoln Highway Association work day a few weeks ago. The original brick pillar that is one mile east of Oceola (Crawford County) was in dire need of repair. Saturday, led by Richard Taylor, members of the chapter did those repairs.
According to my road guide research, this pillar “was set in 1921 to commemorate the completion of the bricking of this part of the highway, and is the only survivor of what may have been eight pillars in Crawford County west of Bucyrus. Past-president Esther Oyster has determined that these brick pillars were set at one-mile intervals, in a span of seven miles from Bucyrus to the Wyandot County Line, and has thus far been able to verify the construction of six of these pillars.”
Perhaps the most fun, colorful blog ever to follow a Lincoln Highway road trip is being posted by Bill and Karen McKibbon. They set out from Ontario, Canada, and joined the LH at Joliet, Illinois. They’re following the old road west to the Pacific (at which time they continue northward), taking tons of photos like above: their car at Preston’s in Blelle Plaine. Bill told me they’re using my Greetings from the LH and LH Companion (buy ’em on Amazon!) and noted how quickly things change: “Some places no longer exist that you wrote about, some things that deserve a marker or plaque don’t, but we are finding the old road as best we can.”
That’s Bill at the Seeding Mile in Grand Island and Karen (they LOVE finding great desserts) in Cheyenne. Don’t pick on her Route 66 shirt — LHA HQ was out of shirts!
LH boosters also should note that almost every cafe they stopped at was CLOSED! In early JULY!!
Bill makes some other interesting observations. This is from Kensinger’s cool deco station in Grand Island, Nebraska, which was featured (along with owner Dick Grudzinski in the PBS special about the LH):
Dick pointed the way to the original early 1900’s concrete behind his gas station. It is very overgrown with weeds and long abandoned. What really surprised me is that there is no sign or plaque acknowledging what this concrete represents. The Lincoln Highway is not promoted like Route 66 is. What a shame.
Or this:
We loaded up the car and drove to Shelton NE where we wanted to visit the The Lincoln Highway Visitors Center. 10 AM on a Saturday morning and this place is locked up tight. There was a notice in the door with a phone number to call and someone would come over. We peaked in the door and the windows and there wasn’t anything in there that we felt was worth disturbing someone. I am sure they had something important to do or they would be here greeting Lincoln Highway travellers. There were no t-shirts to purchase, no postcards, basically it appeared to be an empty room, with a few things hung on the wall.
Or this
We mentioned to the lady at the [Sod House] Museum that we were driving on the Lincoln Highway and she said, “oh you will want to head North then to get on Highway 30” We said no, that we were driving the original Lincoln before there ever was a Highway 30. She thought Highway 30 was the Lincoln. This poor highway, no one seems to care much or know much about it. Here we are from Ontario Canada, and we know more than the locals.
Well, I guess there’s something to be said for not being over-commercialized….
The retracing of the 1919 military convoy route made headlines at it crossed the U.S. the past month. The tour commemorated the 90th anniversary of the first transcontinental U.S. Army motor transport convoy, most of it along the Lincoln Highway. Some of the participants also posted updates. Marilyn Boots reported on her travels with Dennis in “Jezebel,” a Vietnam-era jeep that he restored.
Dennis is a former Army captain who served with the combat engineers, with one tour of duty in Vietnam. Their blog is bootsadventure.blogspot.com/ (also the source for these photos). He was maintenance officer for the convoy so his Jeep brought up the rear of the convoy. Marilyn was “chase lead,” responsible for seeing that civilian vehicles carrying family members of convoy participants stay on schedule.
Here is a comment from June 16, just a couple days after the launch:
Wow! The journey had been incredible so far and extremely busy. I just thought I could blog every evening! We’ve start with breakfasts at 6:30 and have not reached our hotel rooms until after 10 each night. Today is our first rest day, so I want to share some highlights. We are so filled up with memories already that we could stop now and be content.
And the end:
WE MADE IT!!! We all arrived safe and with NO BREAKDOWNS about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Western Terminus of the Lincoln Highway on the edge of San Francisco, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Golden Gate Bridge to the east…. We have never been so grateful for police escorts! There were 32 motorcycle policemen helping us through the enormous amount of traffic over the Bay Bridge and through the hills of San Francisco…. Again, we were cheered on by waving crowds and lots of picture taking as we made the final climb to our destination.
After much back and forth debate, Stackpole Books has finalized the cover to my next book, The Ship Hotel: A Grand View Along the Lincoln Highway. It shows the Ship in the early 50s, when crowds were still coming despite the lure of the parallel Pa. Turnpike. I was hoping for more nautical touches but I’m thrilled they chose to feature this beautiful view from good friend Cy Hosmer.
The Grand View Ship Hotel was once the best-known attraction along the coast-to-coast Lincoln Highway. It’s burning in 2001 broke hearts far and wide. Today all that remains are a few scattered scorched remnants below the 1920s wall (see my brief clip below). My book traces the history starting with a roadside stand that served early travelers stopping for the grand view. I got to design the inside, which will feature lots of cool photos printed large. Look for the book in Spring 2010!
A small segment of Lincoln Highway on the northeast border of Philadelphia is due for change next summer; whether that will affect an 18th century stone arch bridge remains to be seen. Here’s a scene and a video walk along the road and bridge by Rick Sebak when filming his PBS special, A Ride Along the Lincoln Highway.
Plans to fix up Benjamin Rush State Park, parallel to Roosevelt Boulevard/the Lincoln Highway, have languished for decades due to a city-state dispute about the improvements. But according to Philly.com, John W. Norbeck, director of the Bureau of State Parks, last week said he and City Councilman Brian O’Neill reached “an agreement in principle” during a June 30 meeting.
The parks director said last week that the state will proceed as planned to put out bids early next year and for work to commence by June 2010…. The design stipulates that Burling Avenue, a beat-up old city road that cuts through the park from Roosevelt Boulevard’s outer northbound lanes, will be removed and filled in along with another street [Byberry-Bensalem Road, aka the old Lincoln Highway] that can be seen only on maps.
Striking Burling Avenue and Byberry-Bensalem Road from the city’s street map had been a sticking point for years. O’Neill had maintained that city law bars building on a city street unless the street has been “vacated” by ordinance. Later, city zoning matters further complicated things….
When City Council reconvenes in the fall, the councilman said, he will introduce legislation that would erase the streets from city maps and also change the city’s passive recreation ordinance to accommodate the state’s plans for Rush.
A dedication of the restored Black and Orange cabins and a reenactment of the 1919 U.S. Army Military Transport transcontinental convoy will be held at Fort Bridger State Historic Site, July 1 at 10 a.m. The cabins are along the Lincoln Highway in western Wyoming. Here are two views from Rick Sebak as the cabins looked last summer.
The Uinta County Heraldquoted Wyoming Lincoln Highway Director Shelly Home that the convoy will arrive in Evanston on July 1, following an overnight stay in Green River and a stop in Fort Bridger for the dedication of the restored Black and Orange Motor Cabins at 10 a.m. Because Uinta County has many miles of old, but drivable, Lincoln Highway, the convoy will follow dirt roads from Granger to Fort Bridger, and over Eagle Rock to Evanston. Admission to the fort will be waived for all attendees.
The recently restored cabins are along the east side of Fort Bridger State Historic Site. They served travelers from 1926 to 1936. Past LHA conferences have visited the decayed remnants.
Sponsored by the Military Vehicle Preservation Assn., the 1919 Military Transport Convoy reenactment celebrates the 90th anniversary of the event. The convoy will make a brief stop at Fort Bridger for the dedication before continuing on to Evanston. Fort Bridger is located at Exit 34 on I-80. Call (307) 782-3842 for more information.
You can follow along with the two teams of women who are retracing the path of pioneer motorist Alice Ramsey. Both are mostly taking the Lincoln Highway across the Midwest.
The better-known trip, by Emily Anderson, can be followed in photos on Flickr. Here’s a sample photo from Snook’s Dream Cars and Auto Museum, Bowling Green, Ohio:
You also can follow their blog at aliceramsey.org; here’s a portion of the most recent update:
Greetings from Ogllala, NE! We made it here yesterday at around 4pm. Unfortunately, our 200 mile day in the Maxwell (Babbs) was cut short because the dreaded noise returned. The day started out so well — the Maxwell, the Spyker and the Rambler were rolling down the road at 8am. Our first rolling stop was over the original Lincoln Highway bricks in Shelton, NE that we learned about in South Bend, IN. We were excited to see Bob and Lennie [Stubblefield] again (3rd time! South Bend, IN Grand Island, NE & Shelton, NE). This time Lennie ran out to the car to hand us some SUPER cold water! Thank you both for all of your hospitality and energy! It really keeps us going!
Unfortunately the car broke down again at the end of yesterday:
How many times can we put a patch on the same problem? What are we missing? Where is the closest specialty shop? Are we driving tomorrow? ………………………
You can also join this Alice Ramsey Yahoo group about women who are driving pre-1916 cars this summer for the commemoration, notably Dana McNair and Dorothy Grace. It also has many interesting photos such as this before they departed Vassar College, and the next one in DeKalb, Illinois:
Here’s their latest post, documenting from Kearney to Ogallala, Nebraska:
We started out (after tent camping in the thunderstorms) at the AAA office for some more maps. When Dana & I returned to the parking lot, a woman said, “I’ve aged well – I’m Alice Ramsey.” Alice White Ramsey was at AAA because she & her husband are heading to Alaska shortly. She had seen a newspaper article about the trip. When I looked toward the Model T – there were blue T shirts everywhere – Central Elementary kids had swarmed Dan, and were excited to honk the horn. Candi, one adult with them, had said they recently went to the Hastings Museum and were curious about the cars there. The kids moved on to the Cadillac horn, then the dogs.
The women’s club building and the canal were cool in Kearney.
In Lexington NE, we visited with Rick from the Early Cadillac Website – from Dana’s posts re: a hubcap for the 1909 — the saran wrap/ziplock is still working. He inherited a 1906 Cadillac project when his stepfather died. He also has few of his own cars in his building.
Things were going well in North Platte, so we headed on to Ogallala. We are in the next time zone now.
Mosquitos were bad — right next to South Platte River, but a swimming pool at the hotel.
Click the map above for a full-size view of the Lincoln Highway.
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Click the Greetings book below to purchase the ultimate guide to the history and route of the Lincoln Highway!
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• Update to recent murder of Lincoln Cafe owner: No word on the cafe itself in Belle Plaine, Iowa, but bond was set at $500,000 each for three people accused, and at a preliminary hearing yesterday, arraignment was set for August 13 in Iowa County District Court. According to the 
• Sue Barr writes that “My colleague Dr David Heathcote and I are academics in London and teach at the Architectural Association School of Architecture and Middlesex University. We are working on a book on the world history of motorways and will come to the U.S. in September to look at the Lincoln Highway.”
The recently restored cabins are along the east side of Fort Bridger State Historic Site. They served travelers from 1926 to 1936. Past LHA conferences have visited the decayed remnants.
Lincoln Highway News 