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Archive for the ‘transportation’ Category

Carl Fisher grave site to be on LHA 09 tour

March 25, 2008

LHA president Jan Shupert-Arick sent along this photo of Crown Hill Cemetery, the final resting place of Lincoln Highway founder Carl Fisher. It’s on West 38th Street in Indianapolis, Indiana. Dedicated June 1, 1864, Crown Hill’s 555 acres makes it the third largest non-government cemetery in the country. It will be a tour stop during the LHA’s 2009 conference, headquartered in South Bend.

Fisher is listed on their Noted Persons page, though there’s no mention of the Lincoln or Dixie highways that he conceived and nurtured:

Carl Fisher, 1874-1934, Section 13, Lot 42.
Co-Founder of Indianapolis Motor Speedway; developer of Miami Beach, Florida.

Also in the overall list is his infant son by wife Jane.

Another auto-related burial is Edward “Cannonball” Baker, winner of the first race at the Speedway and a racer in the first Indy 500.

Tags:auto history, Carl Fisher, cemetery, famous burial, Indiana, Indianapolis
Posted in highways, history, transportation | Leave a Comment »

Magic Highway USA shows what might have been

March 24, 2008

Here’s a portion of an episode from the 1958 Disney TV show titled “Magic Highway USA” that looks at the future through transportation advancements. It portrays a centrally designed, controlled, world where slums and poverty are nowhere to be found, and work only occurs in office buildings.

The video has received hundreds of comments, and no wonder: the future never looked so good, or so bad. Some write that the world portrayed will never come to pass; others think much of it already has. Some of the technology itself is already passe. If nothing else, the inherent optimism disappeared long ago.

The narrator intones, “The shape of our cities will change, as expanded highway transportation decentralizes our population centers into vast urban areas. With the advent of faster expressways, the commuter’s radius will be extended many miles.

But just as the founders of the Lincoln Highway dreamed of a straight boulevard across the country within their own mostly rural context, the predictors here never saw the complications or drawbacks of their dream world. Indeed, postwar suburbia brought Interstates and decentralized population, but it quickly was derided as sprawl, not celebrated.

Also, the futurists who wrote the show had no idea gender roles would evolve, or that computers would infiltrate all aspects of life. Technological advances are only a small part of the evolving world. Like most predictions, the video has become an interesting relic of its own era.

Tags:Disney, highway futurism, world of tomorrow
Posted in highways, history, transportation, travel | 1 Comment »

Stone's and today's business landscape

March 22, 2008

Randy Stone followed up the post about his family’s business — Stone’s Restaurant in Marshalltown, Iowa — with some great insights about the challenges in recent years. He also shared wonderful photos that we’ll spread out over a few posts.

“The restaurant had fallen on hard times so my part of the family quit our jobs in Illinois and returned to Marshalltown in 2002 to try to salvage the business. We got great support from news media, loyal patrons and many others but could not make ends meet. The last thing we wanted to do was compromise quality or change the nature of the business from what it had been for 100+ years. We put in a new kitchen, upgraded the menu, and generally tried to make it a place grandma would have been proud of. Unfortunately, I think fast food and chain operations have flourished while independant businesses have suffered. At least that seems to be the nature of things in this part of the woods. Great times while they lasted though.

“In the last few weeks we were open, I met a gentleman from Pakistan who had heard about the lemon chiffon pie from friends over there and, while visiting a company in Marshalltown, stopped by to try it. I was also looking through some old guest registers recently and found one from the 40’s that actress Zasu Pitts had signed. She used to appear in W.C. Fields movies. We also have a card that the old cowboy star, Tom Mix had signed. Both Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt gave speeches off the back of trains at the railroad depot that used to be across the street from the restaurant.”

Above: Randy’s grandparents.

Tags:history, Iowa, restaurant, Stone's
Posted in food, history, transportation | 1 Comment »

US 30 bridge named for PA veterans

March 19, 2008

Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell signed six bills into law on March 17, one of which renames the bridge carrying US 30 over Main Street in North Huntingdon Township, Westmoreland County, as the Veterans Bridge. See the actual House Bill 363 here.

According to the bill, the “designation honors the commitment, service and sacrifice of this country’s veterans and will serve as a tangible reminder of the courage and patriotism of the veterans who served this Commonwealth and this nation.” It will take effect in 60 days.

US 30 here is a bypass of the original Lincoln Highway that runs perpendicular to the Irwin business district. The above postcard copy shows the bridge under construction ca. 1939, with the business district behind it. The LH was being realigned in anticipation of the Pennsylvania Turnpike’s western terminus opening in 1940 about a mile to the east.

Tags:bridge, Irwin, North Huntingdon PA, Pennsylvania, veterans
Posted in highways, history, transportation, travel | Leave a Comment »

Harmon uncovers more 1919 Motor Convoy docs

March 18, 2008

In 1919, the Transcontinental Motor Convoy crossed the U.S. to test the mobility of the military during wartime. It is perhaps more famous for a Lieutenant Colonel who decades later would become President Dwight Eisenhower. Twenty-four officers and 258 enlisted men took 81 motorized Army vehicles from Washington, D.C. to Gettysburg, and then followed much of the Lincoln Highway to San Francisco, arriving 62 days later. So much for mobility!

Lincoln and Lincoln Highway researcher Craig Harmon has lately been on the trail of primary sources from the convoy; below are just two of the many revealing documents Harmon has unearthed – another one about camp sanitation is especially intriguing! They add invaluable information to the tale of that cross-country trip. See his website for more information, or ask there to be added to his email updates.

Above, this report runs 35 pages and includes 20 b/w photos. Below, notice the official letterhead!

Click on the image below from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library & Museum, Abilene, Kansas, to visit its page about the convoy.

Tags:1919, archival research, Eisenhower, highway history, Road trip, truck travel
Posted in highways, history, Road trip, transportation, travel | 1 Comment »

New Chicago Lincoln Hwy book gets local review

March 17, 2008

I received an advance copy a couple weeks ago of The Lincoln Highway Around Chicago by Cynthia L. Ogorek and have been enjoying it. A full review will run here shortly, but till then, you can read what the The Times of Munster, Indiana, says about it here.

Above is a photo from the book showing one of two streams that were crossed by the Ideal Section, a 1.3-mile “model” stretch of the Lincoln Highway between Schererville and Dyer, Indiana. A man crossing a temporary bridge at far right gives scale to the enormity of the job. Click HERE to enjoy a hi-res version. Courtesy University of Michigan, Special Collections Library, lhc2719.

Tags:Chicago, Dyer, highway history, Ideal Section of Lincoln Highway, Illinois, Indiana, Road trip, Schererville, travel
Posted in highways, history, transportation, travel | Leave a Comment »

Illinois LH traveling exhibit at Sycamore Library

March 12, 2008

The Illinois Lincoln Highway Traveling Exhibit is nearing the end of its run at Sycamore Public Library, where it is displayed on the second floor through the end of March. The exhibit traces the history of the route across Illinois from Fulton, on the Iowa border, to Chicago Heights on the Indiana border. The exhibit was created by the Illinois Lincoln Highway Coalition and is sponsored at the library by the Sycamore Chamber of Commerce. Here it is at in July 2007 at the Joliet Area Historical Museum:

IL Joliet exhibit

In April and May, it will be in Chicago Southland, site not yet announced;
June – DeKalb Oasis on I-88;
July, August, September – Morrison (no location yet);
October, November, December – Sterling;
January, February, March 2009 – New Lenox;
April, May, June – Chicago Southland area.

Sycamore is about 5 miles northeast of DeKalb via IL 23. The impressive-looking library was built in 1905 with $10,000 from the Carnegie Foundation. It was added to the National Register in 1978. Here’s a photo from its web site and a map from MapQuest showing how to get there from the LH.

Sycamore Public Library
103 East State Street
Sycamore, Illinois 60178
(815) 895-2500

Monday-Thursday, 9:00 am – 9:00 pm
Friday & Saturday, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Sundays, 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm (September – May)

Tags:highway history, Illinois, photo exhibit, Sycamore
Posted in highways, history, Road trip, transportation, travel | Leave a Comment »

Alice Ramsey book recounts, retraces 1909 trip

March 10, 2008

We’ve mentioned the recreation of Alice Ramsey’s cross country trip set for 2009, but readers can relive the original journey courtesy of author and researcher Gregory Franzwa. Alice recounted her adventures 54 years after her 1909 trip in Veil, Duster, and Tire Iron—problem is, it’s extremely hard to find a copy of that book. Franzwa has not only republished the original text but done us all the favor of unearthing where her travels literally took her, from roads to hotels to restaurants. Much of her route (well, west of Ligonier, Indiana) would become the Lincoln Highway four years later.

Alice Ramsey’s story was once well-known: on June 9, 1909, she and three female companions set off from NYC in a new, dark green Maxwell DA. She reached the Pacific 59 days later, becoming the first woman to drive coast-to-coast. The text and illustrations from her 1963 book are here along with 108 new endnotes that add lots of info as to the route and stops.

But the endnotes, following each chapter, are just part of the amazing supplemental material that’s been added. Almost half of Franzwa’s book consists of Chasing Alice, a conversational guide retracing the author’s research journeys. Filled with vintage ads, photos, and modern maps and pictures, the reader tags along as Franzwa tries to find remnants of the original trip. Along the way, fellow researchers, librarians, web sites, and friends help out, like Van and Bev Becker, who combed Mechanicsville, Iowa, for clues to Alice’s overnight stop there. Not only did they locate the buildings that housed the hotel, the livery stable, and the restaurant, but they dug up the hotel’s gold-embossed registers listing the four women travelers, their rooms, and even the time of their wake-up call!

The book ends with a preview of the work being done by Richard Anderson to rebuild a 1909 Maxwell DA and recreate the trip on its centennial. All parts of the book will have you yearning for the open road.

Alice’s Drive: Republishing Veil, Duster, and Tire Iron
by Alice Ramsey, Annotation and “Chasing Alice” by Gregory M. Franzwa
Patrice Press, 265 pp, 161 illustrations, 108 notes, index, softcover
ISBN 1-880397-56-0

$19.95 plus $4.95 s/h direct from Franzwa’s Patrice Press or contact Amazon sellers.

Tags:Alice Ramsey, automobile, cross-country trip, Gregory Franzwa, history, Road trip, travel
Posted in highways, history, Road trip, transportation, travel | 1 Comment »

Iowa bike ride in July to follow much of LH

March 9, 2008

A yearly week-long bicycle ride through Iowa sponsored by The Des Moines Register will follow much of the Lincoln Highway in 2008. The 36th annual RAGBRAI®, the “Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa,” will take place July 20-26, 2008. It is the longest, largest, and oldest touring bicycle ride in the world.

RAGBRAI was started in 1973 as a 6-day ride (not a race) across Iowa by two Register columnists; it’s still planned and coordinated by the newspaper and is now hosted by the Register’s front-page cartoonist, Brian Duffy.

RAGBRAI always begins near Iowa’s western border and ends along the eastern border at the Mississippi River. The route changes yearly but total mileage averages 472 miles (it’s 471 this year) while the daily mileage averages 68 miles. It is rarely flat; this year includes 22,500 feet of climb.

This year will launch from Missouri Valley but not pick up the LH till Jefferson, hit it from Ogden through Boone, again some of it in Ames, Nevada, Colo, and State Center, cross it at points in Le Grand and Tama, then pick it up in Chelsea through Belle Plaine, and meet is through Lisbon/Mt. Vernon, and finally cross it at Mechanicsville. The bike route will be nearby or parallel the LH for much of the time, though not always along it. Fora map you can zoom in on, visit Brian Duffy’s blog.

A week-long rider fee is $125, daily wristbands are $25, and include wristbands, route marking signage, baggage transportation, camping accommodations, discounts, sag wagon services, emergency medical services, traffic control, souvenir patch, daily route maps, and entries into drawing for a free bike for riders and other prizes for support vehicle drivers.

Tags:bicycling, highway, Iowa, Road trip, tour
Posted in highways, Road trip, roadside, transportation, travel | 2 Comments »

Some WY Lincoln Highway sites on 1989 video

March 8, 2008

This clip from July 1989 features a couple (nic & sloy, as nicholsloy studio) visiting three sites in east-central Wyoming: Home Ranch, Dinosaur Graveyard, and Bosler. All are along a stretch bypassed decades ago by I-80, while stole business from them but left a pre-Interstate feel.

Home Ranch, 20 miles west of Medicine Bow, is, as Gregory Franzwa says in his WY LH book, “a ghostly reminder of pre-I-80 days.” The couple captures the long-closed gas station and motel, and a great “No Trespassing” warning. Heading east, they stop at Como Bluff, one of the greatest troves of dino fossils, but they merely read the historic marker. Then comes Bosler, almost completely abandoned then and now. There are great views of a car lot, motel, cafe, and dance hall before they pull over at Doc’s Store.