YOU WILL LOVE this video of central Iowa’s US 30, filmed in 1959 to show congestion and the need for road improvements. Highway Relocations was created by the Iowa State Highway Commission (ISHC), now IDOT, to show the downside of gas stations, rest stops, and the skinny two-lanes they populate. Filming started just east of State Center at the junction of Iowa 64 (now Iowa 330) and US 30 (the Lincoln Highway) and continued west along US 30 through State Center, Colo, Nevada, and Ames, ending just west of Boone. The film is 16 minutes long and covers 55 miles. {Note: Please read the comments for more info on the cars and the year it was filmed.]
Amazingly, most of it was filmed by a camerman perched atop a ladder connected to a car and extending approximately 22 feet in the air above the roadway! The camera, on a 1958 Ford Ranch Wagon, followed and filmed a 1958 Plymouth Fury. “The unidentified cameraman had the precarious task of trying to hold the camera steady and stay on the ladder, notably without a safety harness or other protective device.”
“As part of the Iowa DOT’s effort to preserve and archive its historical resources, the original Highway Relocations 16mm film was recently professionally cleaned and restored to its original film quality.”
The Iowa Lincoln Highway Association’s Third Annual Motor Tour of the Lincoln Highway across Iowa is about to launch. This year’s tour is themed as “From the Wide River to the Loess Hills” because it begins with a pre-tour event on Thursday August 26 at the Wide River Winery in Clinton and concludes on Sunday August 29 at the Loess Hills Winery in Crescent, Iowa. The route travels nearly 330 miles across Iowa. If you’d like to see some of the antique cars participating, or meet some of the entrants, chec the schedule at lincolnhighwayassoc.org/iowa/tour/2010/itinerary.pdf/.
Van and Bev Becker alert us that the historic Grant Wood window damaged in the 2008 flood in Cedar Rapids has been restored and reinstalled along a route of the Lincoln Highway. It is in its original location in the Veterans Memorial Building and facing 2nd Avenue, which was the Lincoln Highway from 1916–1928. Restoration has taken two years and as Van says, it is a significant step in recovery from what is being called the 500-year flood. Attendees of the 2006 LHA conference in Cedar Rapids will recall the window. Wood, who lived in the city, is best known for his painting American Gothic.
Eeastern Iowa News (source of the image above) reported that “200 people gathered on the Second Avenue Bridge to welcome back the famous window at the Veterans Memorial Building. The window, dulled by the years and further damaged in the June 2008 flood, was rededicated with Fourth of July speeches that celebrated patriotism and service .”
John Watts, co-owner of the Glass Heritage company in Davenport that spent the past year restoring the 24-by-20-foot window, said… ‘It is the first and only Grant Wood stained glass window. Everyone kept that in the back of their minds while working on it.’ Watts’ workers cleaned each of the window’s 8,000-plus pieces, painstakingly restoring color where needed. Cracks were soldered or glued and then reassembled in 58 panels.
The Town of Nevada, Iowa, will celebrate its 27th annual Lincoln Highway Days August 27–29, 2010. The theme this year is “Sharing and Caring on the Lincoln Highway!” but the event always includes standard amusements from carnival rides to rodeo tricks, a parade to baby contest. Learn more at www.lincolnhighwaydays.com/.
Van & Bev Becker send word from Iowa that the Lincoln Cafe in Belle Plaine is set to reopen in September. The Cedar Rapids Gazettereported today that Gzim “Jimmy” Limani, owner of the likewise famous King’s Tower Café (also along the Lincoln Highway in nearby Tama) is working to rehab the shuttered cafe. When it opens in September, Limani promises home-style cooking every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
“My customers from Belle Plaine told me I should buy it, so I did,” Limani, who’s originally from Albania, said. “It’s a historical building and the people in town are really excited about it. They have been very supportive.”
The previous owner of the Lincoln Café, Curtis Bailey, of Marengo, was murdered in his home last summer and the café closed….
Limani, his son Arijan, 14, and another worker have almost gutted the inside of the building…. “The place is old and needs cleaning and we’ve ripped it down to the bones, to the bricks. It’s down to the bricks in the kitchen….”
Limani said almost everything like the floors, ceiling and lights will be replaced or repaired and there will be new tables and booths. The outside of the café will also get updated with the help of KB Construction in Belle Plaine.
“I want to keep the original sign and it will stay the Lincoln Café,” Limani said smiling. “I don’t want to change that.”
Vinton Todayran a nice feature about Iowa attendees to the Lincoln Highway Assn conference. It includes some beautiful images from husband and wife photographers Mike Kelly and Sandra Huemann-Kelly. It also reports on LHA awards bestowed:
The annual banquet June 25 included awards presentations. Van and Bev Becker received an “Exemplary Friend of the Highway Award” for their work in hosting an annual amateur radio event at the Youngville Café in Benton County. The Beckers secured the permanent call letters “NY2SF” – New York to San Francisco, the route of the Lincoln Highway.
Sandii also sent some pictures to me, including those above. In the first, Illinois chapter Secretary Sue Jacobson’s daughter and grandkids greeted the west tour bus. In the second, LHA past-president Bob Ausberger with Sean and John Fitzsimmons at the Lincoln Highway Art & Photo Show on Wednesday evening.
At the LHA conference I had the pleasure of meeting John and Joyce Jackson of Delaware, Ohio, who were following the Lincoln Highway westward using my LH Companion guidebook! What’s more impressive is they are stopping at every place mentioned AND getting signatures when they could!! Turns out they too have a blog that’s a fun-to-read adventure at blog.jacksonlhtour.com/. After driving from NYC to Indiana last year, they’ve added a 12-foot Ridgeline travel trailer to hitch to their Lincoln Town Car for 2010 as they head to the Pacific. Here they are on gravel Lincoln Highway between Ogden and Beaver, Iowa.
I spent last week preparing for my drive to Illinois, and now this week I’ve been on the road day and night driving and taking pictures. So I’ll quickly share a couple photos: the first a well-known re-themed gas station in Geneva, Illinois, and the second a view of the old road east of DeWitt, Iowa.
First up Tuesday morning, I’ll be giving a PowerPoint presentation to the ILHC at the Ellwood House Museum Visitor Center in DeKalb, should be lots of fun!
Scott Berka writes that while the city of Colo, Iowa, is still looking for someone to lease the cafe at Reed/Niland Corner, a farmers market will take place there Thursdays from July 1 – September 23, 4pm – 7pm.
FRESH Produce! ~ ORIGINAL Crafts!
HOME BAKED goods! ~ Ice Cream!
If you are interested in being a vendor at the Colo Farmers’ Market, reserve a table for a week or the season by emailing them at colofarmersmarket@gmail.com or for more information contact Colo Development Group at (641) 377-2278. The adjacent Colo Motel continues in operation.
The Iowa amateur radio operators who for the last two years have operated a summer “special event” radio station celebrating 95 and then 96 years along the Lincoln Highway have banded together under the name Lincoln Highway Amateur Radio Group (LH-ARG). They applied to the Federal Communications Commission for a special call sign to use during on-the-air club operations and they now hold the unique call sign: NY2SF — that is, ”New York to San Francisco, from the eastern terminus to the western terminus of the Lincoln Highway.
Key officers of the new LH-ARG are Van & Bev Becker, LHA Life Members. As in the past, the group plans to team with the Benton County Amateur Radio Club to operate another special event station celebrating 97 Years along the Lincoln Highway from Youngville Station the weekend immediately before the 2010 Lincoln Highway Association Conference in Dixon, Illinois. Last year’s special event spread the word of the Lincoln Highway to almost 1,000 different stations in 3 countries.
Click the map above for a full-size view of the Lincoln Highway.
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Amazingly, most of it was filmed by a camerman perched atop a ladder connected to a car and extending approximately 22 feet in the air above the roadway! The camera, on a 1958 Ford Ranch Wagon, followed and filmed a 1958 Plymouth Fury. “The unidentified cameraman had the precarious task of trying to hold the camera steady and stay on the ladder, notably without a safety harness or other protective device.”
Lincoln Highway News 