YouTube features many videos about RAGBRAI, the annual bicycle tour across Iowa, which this year followed much of the Lincoln Highway. In this first one, even President Lincoln gets into it at 3:09. (Can any non-Iowa readers identify the location of the statue?
In this one the riders dip their wheels in the rivers, just like LH travelers did at the oceans!
The Lincoln Motor Court west of Bedford, Pennsylvania, may be the last of the vintage courts still serving overnight guests along the Lincoln Highway. Denny Gibson stayed there Thursday night and wrote, “Despite looking the same from the outside, each of the cabins is just a bit different inside. I was in #6 this time and it is a bit more romantic than my previous accommodations. Note the champagne flutes and the vines near the bed. Hope I didn’t displace some late arriving honeymooners.” Click Denny’s photo below to see the interior larger:
Read more of Denny’s trips HERE, including a visit to the stone bridge at the Philly border.
Lincoln Motor Court was built before 1945; Bob and Debbie Altizer have been taking care of it for 25 years. As you can imagine, there are many challenges to maintaining vintage cabins from painting, plumbing, and wiring to keeping the cottages comfortable. Replacing the roofs have long been a goal but that is expenesive and grants are typically for non-profits. Help preserve this rare resource by staying overnight next time you’re in Pennsylvania. And look for the Altizers and their court in the forthcoming PBS special.
Lincoln Motor Court
5104 Lincoln Highway
Manns Choice, PA 15550
(814) 733-2891
Al Pfingstl reports that his new book about the Lincoln Highway in New Jersey is available from him for $19.95 + $3.00 shipping. That’s because Al is a one-man operation — writer, designer, publisher, and bookseller. His book arrived and it’s packed with info about towns, buildings, monuments, and markers. It’s broken into chapters by county and features some maps courtesy of MapQuest. Note that it does not include roadside businesses such as motels and diners but is rather a look at local history.
Al Pfingstl
83 Princeton Rd
Parlin, NJ 08859
(732) 721 9307
apfingstl@optonline.net
Historic New Carlisle Inc. is teaming with the Indiana Lincoln Highway Association Inc. to celebrate the original route of the Lincoln Highway through New Carlisle on Saturday, October 11, 2008.
Lincoln Highway Day in New Carlisle (about 14 miles west of South Bend, Indiana) will feature street banners, a walking tour of the town’s National Register District, and at 2 p.m. EST the dedication of a Lincoln Highway kiosk at City Hall, 124 E. Michigan St. (old Lincoln Highway). A reception will follow at the Inn at the Old Republic (304 E. Michigan St.) until 4 p.m. Lincoln Highway memorabilia will be on exhibit, and the Gift Shop will have LH merchandise for sale.
The Indiana LHA received grant funds from the national LHA to underwrite the fabrication of Lincoln Highway interpretive kiosks in New Carlisle and Warsaw, Indiana. The kiosks will share the heritage of the Lincoln Highway with thousands of visitors each year.
For more information, contact INLHA Secretary Joyce Chambers at (574) 276-0878 or click the flyer below to get the full-size pdf:
Producing a video is a lot like the books I write — the research is the fun part. The real work is organizing mounds of info into a concise, coherent story for a broad audience. When I visited producer Rick Sebak, he sat next to the tapes for his PBS Lincoln Highway documentary: 99 of them at 40 minutes each! I count 66 hours of raw material that needs boiled down to a 56-minute show. What’s more daunting: that 65/66ths will not be used, or that he still has to watch and consider that material?
Above, Rick reviews the opening sequence and is about to cut the scene with the blue car — too similar to other road shots. Computers let him drag and drop segments of video like magnets on a refrigerator, then editor Kevin Conrad will perform the final splices (all digital of course). We also visited Paula Zetter, who designed the postcards.
I saw about 2/3 of the video and it’s great fun — very colorful and covering a wide variety of people and places. There’s a little from every state on the Lincoln Highway. Along with some basic history, there are markers and monuments, some food stops, and many attractions. Notable landmarks are sprinkled throughout the show too. Intrigued? Tune in Oct 29 at 8 pm AND announcing — repeating Halloween night at 10 pm. These two airings will also be broadcast on PBS-HD, likely the only HD broadcasts of it.
One more note — with a parallel genesis, my Lincoln Highway Companion book will include many of the same highlights when released in the Spring. Rick is just one of dozens of people who contributed their recommendations of places to visit along the route.
I visited producer Rick Sebak today at the WQED-TV studios to see an early cut of his Lincoln Highway documentary to air October 29 on PBS stations. There’s lots to tell but for now, here’s a sneak peak at 8 new postcards that will publicize the show. The photos were snapped by Rick as he traced the route across the US the past two summers. Six of them will be produced just as you see here; two have been reduced to business card size. All will be sent to media outlets and will be available for fans to acquire — more news on that and the show this week, but for now, CLICK THE IMAGE to see the postcard drafts larger:
And read more about the show on Rick’s blog.
Al Pfingstl, LHA NJ Chapter Director, has just completed Sixty-Three Miles of History: The Lincoln Highway in New Jersey. Al says it took him a year to compile, edit, format, and print the book.
“This endeavor was at the urging of my wife, after the passing of my dog ‘Winter’ who was my best friend, research assistant, and traveling partner along the Lincoln Highway. We both traveled on and visited sites as far west as Bedford, PA.”
We’ll let you know when the book, published by Winter Haven Publishing, is available for purchase.
LHA member Dennis Crowley plans to walk across America on the Lincoln Highway. From 1998 through 2005 he walked and worked his way across America from Chicago to California on Route 66. He now calls the effort Cross Roads, “a single purpose and a simple message. By promoting America’s historic highways Cross Roads seeks to call attention to our country’s Christian heritage. The purpose for covering these highways on foot is to make the statement that America needs to return to and walk in her spiritual “‘old paths.'”
LHA director Jay Banta, also of Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge in Utah, wrote:
I look forward to hosting Dennis (and providing a shower!) when he arrives here at Fish Springs and I hope that others will provide him support as well. While we all have slightly different motives for ‘loving’ the highway, it is that passion that binds us and I think that Dennis and his quest can bring some great publicity to the Lincoln. I don’t think he has posted his schedule on the web but I know his first stint will take him from Lincoln Park to Sacramento in September of this year. He plans a Sacramento to Reno stretch in May of 2009 and then a push all the way across NV in the fall of 2009. His Utah and Wyoming crossing is planned for 2010.
Visit www.walkingamessage.com to learn more about “Walking America The Lincoln Way.”
Last summer, we honored Bernie Queneau here at the Heinz History Center with a proclamation from the mayor of Pittsburgh and the LHA. That same day, PBS producer Rick Sebak launched the filming of his LH special by capturing Bernie’s remarks about traveling the Lincoln Highway in 1928 (below, in front of his 16-year-old self holding the CA flag).
Bernie — now 96 years old — is the Lincoln Highway’s most prestigious ambassador, having been on the Boy Scout safety tour of 1928, which also served to promote the Lincoln Highway and the forthcoming marking of the coast-to-coast road with concrete posts/markers.
Yesterday, Rick and crew met Bernie and wife Esther, herself a former president of the LHA. It was 80 years to the day that Boy Scouts across the US fanned out to plant the concrete posts into the ground at corners and main intersections along the Lincoln. Rick recounts it best himself….
We had a great day on the Lincoln Highway with Esther and Bernie Queneau. I realized it was 80 years since Bernie made his cross-country promotional tour for the Lincoln Highway. Meanwhile, we tried to agree on a day when we could go for a ride, and today, Monday, Labor Day, was the only day when Bob and Glenn and I were all available as well as Esther and Bernie.
Then in Hanoverton, when we pulled to look at the replica marker, Esther mentioned that the markers had been erected on the same day, September 1, 1928. That was 80 years ago today! By chance, we were observing the 80th anniversary of the concrete posts with a drive into Ohio. It was glorious.
We actually had great luck all day. We met Bernie and Esther at the Teapot in Chester, WV, at 10 AM, and while getting a few shots, a car pulled over and Susan Badgley who helps take care of the landmark got out and offered to show us inside. How could we pass up the opportunity? Susan’s mother remembered the pot back 65 years.
Susan’s husband Tom is a toll taker on the Newell Bridge, and she offered us some free tickets to make several crossings, trying to get some shots of Esther and Bernie crossing the river into Ohio. [That’s Bernie below driving his Buick.]
We ended the day driving back and forth on Baywood Street west of Minerva. What a beautiful old stretch of red brick road! We thought we had driven into an Edward Hopper painting. Several nice old painted markers on telephone poles, and two quick interviews with our subjects. They are amazing.
Above: Rick Sebak photographed Bernie Queneau driving the LH via Baywood Street in eastern Ohio – CLICK to see it larger.
The July 2008 issue of Throttler Motorcycle Magazine had an article about motorcycling the Lincoln Highway through Iowa. I contributed the images and Craig Ruegsegger wrote the story.
For more information, contact President & Publisher Roderick Kabel at roderick@throttlermagazine.com or visit www.throttlermagazine.com/.
Click the map above for a full-size view of the Lincoln Highway.
Like this blog? You'll LOVE my books!Lincoln Highway Companion features detailed maps and places to eat and stay. Click the book to buy it on Amazon.
Click the Greetings book below to purchase the ultimate guide to the history and route of the Lincoln Highway!
Another fun book! The Ship Hotel: A Grand View along the Lincoln Highway recalls the greatest roadside attraction along the coast-to-coast road.
And for those who LOVE diners, click the book below to purchase our completely updated guide to the history, geography, and food of Pennsylvania's Diners!
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