The blog 42N Observations comments about life near the 42N Latitude, particularly around Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This post from a while back has four photos of Lincoln Highway segments and monuments in Linn County. Click HERE to visit, and click the photos there to see them larger.
Loungelistener, as 2-lane road traveler Gary is known on Flickr, is following the Lincoln Highway from Clinton, Iowa, to its western terminus in San Francisco, California. He and his wife are taking their little Kia Sportage, which they call the “Trucklet” since “it’s too big to be a car, but it’s too small to be a truck.” By now they’re hurtling towards their launch point:
Geez, so much to do in only a few days. Sunday evening is when we leave, powering across Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois in the dark, to arrive in the morning light on the Lincoln Hwy at the Iowa/Illinois border and start west. Sunday evening looms like an stampeding elephant.
Follow along at loungelistener.wordpress.com and see all his amazing roadside photos at www.flickr.com/.
According to the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Curtis C. Bailey, co-owner of the Lincoln Cafe in Belle Plaine, Iowa, was murdered Sunday by his common-law wife and two other people, reportedly her son and his girlfriend. LHA director Van Becker sent the photo and alerts us that the story was reported yesterday on Cedar Rapids KCRG-TV 9 and this morning in the Gazette.
Van Becker sent news that two Iowa locations celebrated “96 Years on the Lincoln Highway” on June 13-14 with two amateur radio stations operating for two days from two historic one-stop locations. Above is Bev Becker, WØWDC, LHA life member and experienced amateur radio operator taking her first turn at the mic; following is Van’s report.
The Benton County Amateur Radio Club, KØKBX, put the restored Youngville Cafe on the air operating with three transmitters on the 20, 40 and 80 meter ham bands. This is the second year for this crew and practice sure helped the results! We had 12 operators rotating through one-hour stints at the microphone.
ABOVE: Youngville Cafe, 20 miles west of Cedar Rapids, Iowa on the Lincoln Highway. Inside, an original 1928 LH marker is on display.
The Ames Amateur Radio Club, WØYL, operated from Reed-Nyland Corner in Colo, Iowa. This group experienced a slow start while installing temporary antennas in the rain. This was the first year for this group and they had respectable results and lots of fun. They also had the comfort of a fully-operating cafe for refreshments.
ABOVE: Reed-Nyland gas station, Colo, Iowa, on the Lincoln Highway.
Together, we contacted over 1,000 different stations from coast to coast, quite a few Canadian stations, and even one fellow in Scotland!
The operators had a sheet of “talking points” and LH facts to help enlighten the over-the-air listeners. All the stations contacted will receive an impressive color confirmation certificate upon receipt of their QSL (confirmation) card. Each certificate will be accompanied by a Lincoln Highway Association brochure too.
We spread the Lincoln Highway word far and wide!
An article in the Quad City Times reports that a Lincoln Highway marker was unearthed during sewer work in DeWitt, Iowa. It is one of a couple thousand concrete posts planted in 1928 with help from the Boy Scouts that marked the route, but most have gone missing.
I checked with Van Becker, LH expert in Iowa, who told me that Iowa LHA state director Jeff LaFollette was contacted by Matt Proctor, DeWitt Director of Public Works. Proctor provided the above photo of the marker after a power wash. Matt wrote, “It was knocked over in the 300 block of 11th Street (old Rt 30, north side). Before I could get there, the contractor and inspector pulled the [brass Lincoln head] off. I raced there and saved the concrete marker. I am going to get it cleaned up.” From the article:
City Administrator Steve Lindner said the city plans to have the marker restored and placed along 11th Street, the Lincoln Highway route through DeWitt…. The marker was sitting on a hand truck in the middle of the City Council chambers during Monday night’s regular meeting.
Van Becker adds:
Once it is restored and placed I will get a photo and GPS location. With this addition, I now have documented the existence and location of 94 (YES, 94) known 1928 LH markers in Iowa. This is a Left Turn marker [and] there was only one marker placed on 11th Street, and, it was a Left Turn marker. Probably safe to say it is number 972. Old number 972 was originally placed “100 yds E of 5th Ave. & 11th St” in DeWitt as instructed by Gael Hoag, Field Secretary of the Lincoln Highway Assn.
The post numbering was devised by the LHA’s Russell Rein, who transcribed Hoag’s log. Contrary to popular belief, there were not 3,400 concrete posts at about one per mile; Russ counted just 2,436 posts. There were also some 4,000 signs for city streets, which rarely are mentioned (though Russ and his marker counts are in my Greetings from the Lincoln Highway book).
Sunday’s Cedar Rapids Gazette ran a story about the Lincoln Cafe, along the Lincoln Highway in Mount Vernon, Iowa. Owner and chef Matt Steigerwald won the Cochon 555 competition held in Des Moines on April 19. Below is the story and a photo of the place by PBS producer Rick Sebak.
Cochon is French for pig, so 5 competing chefs prepared a Heritage Pig for judging and public tasting. Steigerwald was the only chef not from Des Moines. The chefs prepared the pigs in their own restaurants and transported them to the competition—for Steigerwald, a 2-hour drive. Some of the items Steigerwald made were pozole (a Mexican soup made with pork and hominy), a pork belly confit, biscuits made with lard, head cheese and Carolina pork barbecue.
Steigerwald took home a bottle of Templeton Rye and a trophy that declared him the “Prince of Porc.” The competition is traveling nationally and will be in Chicago next on May 24. For more information go to www.amusecochon.com/.
The Nevada [Iowa] Journal reports that the town’s Lincoln Highway Days committee has revamped its web site to include more info and images. The long-running annual event will take place this August 28-30.
The updated site was created by Camp Registry, a company in Ames, Iowa, that builds sports camp Web sites around the country. The site, www.LincolnHighwayDays.com, will allow board members to update the site themselves with announcements, board minutes, and photos. Community members can volunteer to help with the celebration or sign up for the parade through the site, and are encouraged to submit their own Lincoln Highway Days photos, information, and announcements. A quick look, however, found some broken and misdirected links for now.
The March/April 2009 issue of Midwest Living has a 5-page article about the Lincoln Highway and Route 66 (though 66 gets the mention on the cover as you can see at right). The title is “Touring Route 66 and Lincoln Highway: Follow the route of the first super roads across the U.S.” The focus is on the midwest, so for the Lincoln that means Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska. Click HERE to read the magazine’s online excerpt, though you’ll need to pick up a hard copy to see the photos.
The 2nd Annual Iowa Lincoln Highway Motor Tour has been set for August 28-30, 2009. Featured stops along the west-to-east tour will include Desoto Bend, Carroll, Jefferson, Boone, Nevada, Marshalltown, Tama, Youngville, Cedar Rapids, Mechanicsville, Lowden, and Clinton.
ABOVE: George Preston’s station, Belle Plaine. Photo from the Iowa Lincoln Highway Association site, by Bryan Osberg, Urbandale, Iowa.
The tour is open to any make and model car, though a good many classics show up too. Registration is $20 per vehicle for Iowa LHA members or $30 per vehicle for non-members (includes a 1-year membership to the Iowa LHA) Click HERE for the registation form. For more information, contact Iowa LH Road Run coordinator Jeff LaFollette at jefflaf@peoplepc.com/.
Reviewing the Iowa chapter in my forthcoming Lincoln Highway Companion, I often compare my maps to extreme close-ups of the LHA’s excellent CD-based maps based on the DeLorme system. My book has a photo from just east of Grand Junction, Iowa, where 4 bridges cross Beaver Creek. However, I noticed the LHA maps only show 3 roads/bridges there, despite a notation of “4 Bridges.”
So I checked with Bob and Joyce Ausberger, who made the ultimate effort to save the original tiny concrete bridge there by purchasing it and the land around it! They confirmed that the original LH needs to be shown crossing it. “There is still the remains of the road grade. You need to be standing at the right location to see it. It was never more than a graded dirt road, but it’s there. Right now it is covered with brome grass so it probably wouldn’t show up on the DeLorme maps.”
You can see all 4 in the Google Maps aerial view — from top: original LH, railroad, old LH, and US 30. (And note how lucky we are – the aerial views go low-res just a few yards to the west!)
On a sample of the DeLorme map, I’ve drawn in by hand a bright blue line where the original route should be, and a black circle where the bridge is. I’m guessing at where it joins the revised LH/222nd St on the west end but maybe readers can help confirm that.
Click the map above for a full-size view of the Lincoln Highway.
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