Lincoln Highway News

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.