Don Allen Auto City, a well-known car dealership on Pittsburgh’s East End, is set to be replaced by a $230 million development. The c. 1920 showoom and related areas cover seven acres where Baum Boulevard intersects Liberty Avenue, and at the confluence of three communities: Shadyside, Bloomfield and East Liberty. All buildings will be demolished and over the next four years, the site will fill with townhouses, condominiums, a 9-story hotel, 1,200 parking spaces, and 700,000 square feet of office and related space. A triangular park bordered by Liberty, Baum and South Aiken Avenue will also be built. Numerous publications and sites are covering the story including Hotels, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Don Allen opened 52 years ago and has been owned by the Voelker family for 50 years. The building long had a 1960s metallic facade, but it was removed in recent years, exposing the brick underneath. A mural from that period remains in the parts department, its fate unknown. The business stretches a few blocks along Baum Boulevard, once the city’s Automobile Row. It was a main road into Pittsburgh’s wealthy eastern suburbs, and so became a leading retail, repair, and manufacturing center for bicycles, and then for cars by the 1910s. Scattered remnants survive, including a former Ford assembly plant a couple block west, a 1933 Modernist Chrysler showroom designed by Albert Kahn a few blocks east, and a showroom turned drug store across from that. A few blocks farther eastward is a marker for the first drive-in filling station, which is more correctly the first architect designed drive-in station, built by Gulf in 1913
This video report below includes a woman who says “they need something that’s more affordable…. It’s just outrageous trying to find a place that people can afford.” Another questions whether more housing and hotels are needed. Click on the image to open the video’s web page:
Inventory liquidation is ongoing, and site preparation should start this summer, pending city approval and funding; according to the Post-Gazette, “The project partners acknowledge that they hope to secure public financing to assist with the project, although they were not willing today to specify what type or how much.”
I’ve been working with Lincoln Highway National Museum and Archives director Craig Harmon on a discovery of his: a newspaper in my hometown, the The Pittsburgh Press, held a massive annual contest from 1912-1930 for schoolchildren to write essays about president Lincoln. I’m writing a short piece about his research into the contest, and he continues to dig into the topic from his base in Washington DC.
1928 and 1930 medals from the The Pittsburgh Press contest.
All this talk got Craig thinking, and he’s come up with an even grander plan: a global Lincoln contest sponsored by LHNMA.
Harmon and his vintage fire truck at I-80 exit 184 west of Rawlins, Wyoming, the original site of the Henry Joy memorial.
The contest began January 12 to coincide with the birthday of Carl Fisher, founder of the Lincoln Highway, and inquiries have already come from as far as Korea. There are 6 categories: K-6th grade; 7th-8th; 9th-12th; college students; ages 18 through 59; and ages 60+. Essays should be in English and be no more than 272 words, the number of words in Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Entries must be in Word or WordPerfect and e-mailed. Prizes range from Savings Bonds to LHA-stye certificates. Harmon is also looking for donations of prizes or funding to make the event even grander — contact him at prize@lincoln-highway-museum.org if you would like to contribute.
Get complete rules on Harmon’s LHNMA website. Note that LHNMA is now exclusively an online collection of Lincoln info and ephemera.
The front of this postcard says it all – Red Top Diner and Shell Station, Highways 24 & 30 East — City Limits, Fort Wayne, Ind.
Three train tracks can be seen behind, and the diner looks to be a converted railcar. The automobile is a mid-’30s coupe. Can’t imagine this part of the Lincoln Highway being quite so rural now. Could that be Maumee Avenue right behind the station, and E Washington Blvd in the foreground? The setting looks right and a couple business as seen in this Google aerial view at bottom center and right seem to fit the layout
Anyone know more about Red Top? The picture was taken some 70 years ago, so it’s critical to ask those who might remember before all traces and memories of such places disappear forever.
As I prepare to hand to my publisher the images for my next book, Lincoln Highway Companion, I’m left with hundreds that just don’t fit. They’re fine photos, but I have a page count that I can’t exceed and it’s already filled. So here’s the first of the runner-ups.
I’ve photographed this neon sign for at least 15 years. It’s in West Virgina very close to the Pennsylvania border. The sign and entrance face the parking lot – in the rear of the nightclub! The Lincoln Highway opened here in 1928 – I’ve always wondered if it originally came down this side and was later moved to the front side of the building to make the road straighter.
In this other angle I posted on Flickr, you can see that under the Carriage Club neon is lettering for what must be an earlier name, the Half Moon Club. Any West Virginians know more about the club or the road here?
“You ever wake up sometimes maybe around 3 o’clock in the morning, you look up at the ceiling, the blackness – you feel that terrible urge to see it all, to get on the road. To smell the pine trees, watch all the rivers, see all the skies, climb all the hills….”
Jean Shepherd was a humorist known to millions through books, radio, and live shows, but is best known to modern audiences for co-writing and narrating (as grown-up Ralphie) the 1983 film A Christmas Story. He also had a very popular TV show: Jean Shepherd’s America, produced by WGBH (PBS) Boston, aired 13 shows in 1971 and 13 in 1985. (They’re available on DVD, or learn more here.) This clip, from the last show of the 1971 season, is the final segment and end credits. Jean and his crew are snowbound in Wyoming at Holding’s Little America motel and truck stop, along the Lincoln Highway and I-80. During the 4-minute video, he talks, in his measured prose, about life on the road, and the American urge to keep moving.
More than 50 officials, friends, and members of the Wiggin Family and Lincoln Highway Association braved chilly temperatures to dedicate a marker that honors both the Lincoln Highway and Wiggin’s Trading Post that opened there in 1924. The ceremony was held Saturday, December 8, 2007, at 15600 S. Harlan Road in Lathrop, California.
Above: At the Lathrop marker dedication, from left to right: Bob Dieterich, James Lin, Gary Kinst, Paul Gilger, Norm Root. Lloyd Johnson, Mike Kaelin, and Carolyn Lignos. The plaques read: (top) Lathrop Sunrise Rotary; (middle) America’s First Coast to Coast Road Established 1913; (bottom) 1924-1967 Site of Original Wiggin’s Trading Post Serving Travelers Along The Lincoln Highway.
Francis Wiggin’s Granddaughters, Janet and Patti, presented photos to master of ceremonies John Serpa (SEE BELOW), a member of LHA and the Lathrop Sunrise Rotary Club. Marine Corps League Detachment #109 from Modesto presented the colors, and Boy Scout Troup #425 from Lathrop led the singing of the National Anthem and the unveiling of the monument.
A Marine Corps League Certificate of Appreciation for Loyalty and Patriotism was presented by John Treantos, Commandant of #109, to Mr. Dalwinder Dhoot for flying the American flag continuously 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 14 years at Joe’s Travel Plaza. Dhoot and family own the new Best Western Hotel at the site, and graciously allowed the Rotary to erect the marker. Mr. Dhoot then invited all guests to join the grand opening festivities for the 3-floor, 81-room hotel and provided complimentary food and beverages.Speakers included:Kristy Sayles, Mayor of Lathrop.Norm Root, President, California Chapter of the LHA (SEE BELOW).
Thanks also go to:Gabe Young, cement and engraving of stone monument.Brian Green, Signarama of Tracy.Stephen Dresser, President, Lathrop Sunrise Rotary.Dolores Delgado, Chief of Police, City of Lathrop.Charles Edwards, Boy Scout Troup #425 Leader.Richard Wiggins, Grandson of Francis Wiggins.Mary Kennedy, President, Lathrop Chamber of Commerce.And I again thank Gary Kinst for helping with info and images for this report.
A marker was dedicated Saturday, December 8, along South Harlan Road at Thomsen Street in Lathrop, California, to commemorate the Lincoln Highway and a family business that once occupied the corner. Francis Wiggin opened Wiggin’s Trading Post along the Lincoln Highway south of Stockton in 1924. He carried Gilmore Gasoline, then in 1932, began selling “Indian Head” Gasoline, which he had patented. He also sold Indian souvenirs, learned from his days working with the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show.
Francis Wiggin’s son Francis Porter Wiggin II and his wife Ruth had seven children: Frank, Paul (b. 1934), Richard (b. 1936), Tom (b. 1940), Janet (b. 1946), Don, and Patti (b. 1955). Above, Wiggin’s grandchildren Janet and Tom ride a play horse/burro in 1949. Near the pumps might be one of their brothers.
Son Francis II joined the business around 1936, and Francis Sr. passed away in 1950. The Trading Post closed in 1967, but grandson Richard operates (but has it for sale) Wiggin’s Trading Post in Chilcoot, California at 94139 Highway 70. Another Wiggin’s Trading Post is said to be in Arizona but the location and owner are not known.
The Lincoln Highway went south from Stockton through Lathrop on what is now Harlan Road on its way to Tracy. I-5 now closely parallels the old road. Information about the ceremony will follow in a separate post. Thanks to Gary Kinst for helping with info and the image.
An article in The New York Times examines the current state of the Pulaski Skyway, an overhead road that bypassed part of the Lincoln Highway in northern New Jersey in 1932. The 3-mile-long superhighway, named for Revolutionary War general Casimir Pulaski, was built to handle the traffic resulting from the opening of the Holland Tunnel in 1927. It carries traffic above the region’s heavy industrial and commercial areas. On its first day of operation, 48,611 cars used it; today the average is 85,000 according to the Department of Transportation. The skyway was an engineering marvel when opened in 1938: the American Institute of Steel Construction called it the most beautiful steel bridge, and it still is a grand structure. But its lanes are narrow, and after the tragic collapse of a bridge in Minneapolis that employed the same antiquated design, it’s again being reviewed. All of the 700-such bridges in the US lack a secondary support, “meaning that the failure of just one piece of steel could send them plummeting to the ground.”
NJ Governor Jon S. Corzine says that “instead of spending the $10 million a year now planned to keep the skyway safe and operational, it might be wiser to replace it,” but that would cost $1 billion. The bridge was inspected in spring 2007, but the NJ Department of Transportation, “citing security concerns, refused to release the records of that inspection or discuss whether the findings differed substantially from those of the previous inspection.” Another inspection was ordered after the Minneapolis collapse.
So the most recent data is from a 2004 inspection. On a scale of 0 to 9, with 9 being perfect and 0 requiring a shutdown, the skyway was rated 4 for the physical condition of its structural members and 5 for the physical condition of its piers and other substructure components.
According to the Times, “Those numbers are not dire. But the scores are similar to those assigned to the bridge in Minneapolis. It received a 4 for structure and 6 for substructure during its most recent inspection.” That makes it “structurally deficient” though “not a risk of imminent collapse.”
Although it is 35 years older than the Minneapolis span, it may actually be safer; since less was known about structural support then, more steel was often used than was needed. And because Jersey City banned trucks from the bridge in 1934, it’s taken less of a beating. That’s why officials want to assure drivers not to panic, that there’s plenty of time to plan for repairs or replacement. Let’s hope so.
The Lincoln Highway often followed the course of the Transcontinental Railroad out west, mostly in spirit but sometimes atop it. When the railroad was built through Weber Canyon in eastern Utah in 1868-69, workers planted a “1,000 mile tree” to mark the point 1,000 miles west of their starting point of Omaha, Nebraska. I see references occasionally to the tree, and have noticed a couple stereoview cards online. A few photos were taken too, such as this one as the rails are laid in 1869 from the U.S. Geological Survey Photographic Library:
Check out the sign hanging from it!
The Lincoln Highway cut through the canyon some 45 years later, as did I-84 probably 60 years after that. I don’t remember seeing the tree or signs for it, but it is said to still be in Wilhelmina Pass, a mile east of Devils’ Slide. Click on the thumbnail below for a recent view from I-80 (and once there, click the magnifying glass to see the phhoto much larger):
That looks to be the pine tree on the right, next to the white square, which is probably a sign. Surely the tree has been written about by Utah historians or by railroad fans. Can anyone tell us more about it?
This 1940s postcard advertised Wood’s Motel & Cafe – “ultra modern and steam heat” – on US 30 South in East Evanston, Wyoming. Has any part survived to visit during the 2008 LHA conference this June?
Click the map above for a full-size view of the Lincoln Highway.
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