Another vintage photo from the Ternet Collection at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana, shows a Cities Service station with a sign for cabins, this one in Townley, Indiana.
Collection donor Lois Ternet explains that the site is now the location of Triple T’s (Todd’s Townley Tavern), 21313 Lincoln Highway: “It is on the northeast corner of Lincoln Highway and 101. Townley was once booming until the Tornado of 1920.”
The Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor folks received word that the Tunnel Diner in Jersey City, New Jersey, is slated for demolition. This classic factory-built diner (1950s interior, 1960s redo outside) at 184 14th Street is along the later Lincoln Highway, once it was rerouted between New York City and New Jersey due to the opening of the Holland Tunnel in November 1927. It had closed in 2007. The cover of the album Tunnel Diner (by Steve Mackay and the Radon Ensemble on Qbico Records) shows one of the diner’s most memorable features, a vertical neon sign. The diner reportedly appeared in the 1996 film City Hall about the accidental shooting of a boy in New York City, with a cast headed by Al Pacino, John Cusack, Bridget Fonda, and Danny Aiello.
Anyone know more about the closing and scheduled demolition?
With this being the first full day of Spring, maybe we can start our fair-weather road trips soon, but for now, rain and snow are still hitting parts of the Lincoln Highway. Click here to see my sampling of weather conditions along the Lincoln.
I went looking for photos from last Spring. Below is a Springtime view of a courthouse along the Lincoln – anyone know where? Like the last Mystery Photo, clues make it easy to identify.
The charred remains of Sleepy Hollow Tavern are sad to see. Johnathan Myers has posted photos of the place showing the destruction caused by a fire that started late February 25 along the Lincoln Highway west of Ligonier, Pennsylvania. Click the link above to view them.
Here’s an early postcard of the tavern in happier times….
Can’t go wrong with “food prepared mother’s way”!
The Lincoln Highway Buy-Way, a yard sale running along the road through 4 states, is set for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, August 7-9, 2008. Launched in Ohio a few years ago, it has grown to include Indiana, Illinois, and West Virginia. Homeowners and businesses set up sales or offer specials along the way, making for a fun yard sale/road trip. Ohio even distributes thousands of free color maps along the route showing the road and Buy-Way business supporters.
Above: During last year’s Buy-Way, we lunched at the Hot Dog Shop in East Liverpool, Ohio.
For more info, contact:
Mike Hocker, Executive Director
Ohio Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor
419-468-6773
Packgpwr@bright.net
www.historicbyway.com/buyway.html
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.
Jim Steeley, of the Westmoreland County Historical Society and a LH researcher, came across a Lincoln Highway item in the September 30, 1915, Greensburg Daily Tribune, about rerouting the LH away from Madison, Pennsylvania. Problem is, the LH never went through Madison!
The article “Failure To Comply With Request May Lose Lincoln Highway” appeared on the front page of the paper describing Madison Borough’s refusal to improve its streets, therefore endangering the borough “to be side-tracked, and the Lincoln Highway removed from it.” It cited an engineer and a superintendent of county roads who “decided to change the route of the Lincoln Highway from Darragh through Herminie, leaving old Madison Borough to the left of the highway.” It would “not lengthen the road more than a fraction of a mile.”
But the Lincoln Highway is not known to have gone anywhere near Madison, let alone through it. To follow this route, Jim explains, the Lincoln Highway would have run through Greensburg to West Pittsburgh Street where it intersects with West Newton Street and hence to the West Newton Road (Rt 136) through Darragh, o to Madison (until it was bypassed) and Herminie, then north on Clay Pike through Rillton to Circleville at the top of Jacktown Hill, where it would join present-day US 30 west of Irwin. The map above shows the commonly known LH in red, the implied route in blue, and the topic of the article (routing through Madison) in green.
The first official LH road guide, published spring 1915, lists Greensburg followed (heading west) by Grapeville, Adamsburg, and Irwin—all along the red-marked route, similar to today’s US 30. Why, a half-year after the 1915 guide was published, was it believed that these towns were on the Lincoln Highway?
Lincoln Highway Days treasurer Linda Griffith reports that the theme of this year’s celebration in Nevada, Iowa, will be “25 years of Family Fun.” Along with the carnival and rodeo, there will be “Crafts and Arts and Flea Market,” food vendors, dances for teens and adults, Klassy Kruisers antique car club from Ames, and a display of antique tractors. The parade on Saturday will start along Lincolnway at 9:30 a.m. and the all-day big celebration will follow at the Story County 4-H grounds located lst Street and I. Avenue. Below are some images from http://www.lincolnhighwaydays.com from past events.
Folks in California just can’t stop marking, promoting, and preserving the Lincoln Highway. Gary Kinst, editor of LHA’s California chapter quarterly newsletter The Traveller, sent a couple photos from the recent dedication of a “Historic Lincoln Highway” sign at the Summit Garage in Altamont. From left are Deborah DuBois, Mike Kaelin. Al Vieux, and Linda Krhut.
Al, a cattle rancher in the area since 1951, owns the garage. In a few days, Deborah and Linda will be opening “Creative Cave” antique and stained glass shop there. (Linda had been involved with Tri-Valley Youth Services that occupied the building last year – see LH News entry for 2/15/08). Mike is the Alameda County rep./consul for LHA California, and an ad hoc advisor to the Summit Garage. And to make our story complete, Gary formerly owned 5 automotive garages in the East Bay area, and now writes and researches garages and the Lincoln Highway in addition to his day job.
A new web site commemorates the 250th anniversary of Forbes Trail, hacked through the forests of Pennsylvania in 1758 during the French and Indian War. General John Forbes led an expedition from Philadelphia over the Allegheny Mountains to capture French-occupied Fort Duquesne, at what later became Pittsburgh. Among the 6,000 British and colonial troops was young George Washington, a 26-year-old colonel with the Virginia troops. The www.forbestrail.org site is a project of French and Indian War 250, the organization spearheading the commemoration of the French and Indian War.
Forbes Trail (also commonly called Forbes Road) was closely followed or paralleled by the Lincoln Highway and US 30 across the state. Only mid-state does it deviate, when the military road jogs north to Carlisle, near Harrisburg. The Lincoln/30 stays south through Gettysburg and Chambersburg.
The web site features seven “gateways” – Philadelphia, Lancaster, Carlisle, Fort Loudoun, Bedford, Ligonier, and Pittsburgh – where visitors can click to learn its connection to the trail and what historical remnants survive.
A long-anticipated book is due in May. Pennsylvania’s Forbes Trail: Gateways and Getaways along the Legendary Route from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh ($18.95) will feature more than 40 themed tours with info on activities, lodging, and dining.
I asked French and Indian War 250 Marketing Director Karen Lightell about the difference between calling it Road and Trail. She said they “chose ‘Forbes Trail’ to avoid confusion because many people see the Forbes Road as extending only from Carlisle to Pittsburgh—i.e., the road the Forbes Expedition actually built. They traveled from Philadelphia on existing roadways. ‘Forbes Trail’ is meant to imply the entire experience ‘today’ of the corridor along the original Forbes route as described in the book.”
Click the map above for a full-size view of the Lincoln Highway.
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