Posts Tagged ‘Lincoln Highway’
January 22, 2010
Olga Herbert, executive director of the Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor in Pennsylvania, has a friend who wants to sell his collection of Ship Hotel memorabilia. Anyone interested in purchasing part or all of the collection should send their name and phone # to Olga at office@LHHC.org. In about a week, she will send the info to him and he will follow up by telephone. NOTE: no portion of the profits will go to the LHHC, she is doing this as a favor since he doesn’t have e-mail.

The complete story of the Ship Hotel is due out in March in a book written by, well, me. I began researching the Ship in 1988 and became friends with Clara Gardner, granddaughter of founder Herbert Paulson. Clara is gone now but her children graciously permitted me to use many, many family photos. Look for more peeks inside the book in the coming months.
Tags:Bedford PA, Grand View Ship Hotel, hotel shaped like ship, Lincoln Highway, PA history, Road trip, roadside attraction, Ship Hotel, two-lane travel, US 30
Posted in highways, history, Lincoln Highway, lodging, Road trip, roadside, travel | 8 Comments »
January 21, 2010
The Reno Gazette-Journal reported about a bike trail that will incorporate seven miles of the old Lincoln Highway near the California-Nevada border. For now, that section is the biggest missing link in the Tahoe-Pyramid Bikeway, a 116-mile path that follows the Truckee River from Lake Tahoe to Pyramid Lake. The new part will be routed along I-80 and dirt roads from Boca Reservoir to Dog Valley Road in Verdi.
Janet Phillips, who founded the group of volunteers working on the project, said of the 10 new miles, seven miles will be on old roadbed from the Lincoln Highway and three miles of new construction will be required.

Phillips said, “There’s a huge transportation history in that canyon and we are going to bring some of it back to life.” A big obstacle was cleared December 10 when the Truckee-Donner Recreation and Park District Board approved an environmental study for the project that was required by California.
Tags:bike trail, historic highway, Lake Tahoe., Lincoln Highway, travel, Truckee CA
Posted in highways, history, Lincoln Highway, transportation, travel | Leave a Comment »
January 20, 2010
We can dream of summer road trips this time of year but for now it’s only one month into Winter. Here’s a nice photo (if you like cold weather) from the Omaha World-Herald showing a Lincoln Way street sign in Woodbine, Iowa, known for it’s brick-paved stretch of Lincoln Highway.

Tags:brick street, ice strom, Lincoln Highway, old highway, Omaha news story, travel, Woodbine IA
Posted in highways, Lincoln Highway, Road trip, signs, travel | Leave a Comment »
January 18, 2010
The Sixth Annual BUY-WAY Yard Sale along the Lincoln Highway has been set for August 5, 6 and 7, 2010. The leading state is Ohio, which last years had over 1,000 yard sale locations.

“Ohio started this, and parts of Indiana and Illinois soon joined in,” said Mike Hocker, executive director of the Historic Byway in Ohio, “and now there is talk of New Jersey and Iowa joining this year.”
The dates are now established to be the “first Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in August” and will occur along with the “Route 127 Sale” which crosses the Lincoln in Van Wert, Ohio, the same weekend.
A Travelers Guide will be distributed to businesses along the corridor for pick-up by shoppers in late July, and the official byway website, www.historicbyway.com will host free and paid listings of yard sales and other activities beginning in May.
Tags:historic highway, Lincoln Highway, Ohio, Road trip, travel, yard sale
Posted in highways, history, Lincoln Highway, Road trip, roadside, souvenirs, travel | 1 Comment »
January 14, 2010
Various local editions of Suburban Chicago News are telling of work today about noon to mount a new Lincoln Highway mural in Aurora, Illinois. The 200-square-foot mural, spearheaded by the Illinois Lincoln Highway Coalition, depicts the city nearly a century ago, when the Lincoln Highway was the premier transcontinental trail.
Coalition Associate Director Diane Rossiter explains, “Each mural is painted on what’s called di-bond – a vinyl clad aluminum product — so if a building is remodeled or torn down, we could take it down without losing it.” The mural is on the north wall of the La Quinta de Los Reyes restaurant, 50 N. Broadway. Click HERE to see the image below larger.

The project has been in the works for years, according to Sue Vos, head of the Aurora Area Convention and Visitors Bureau…. Each mural costs roughly $10,000, but the cities and towns receiving them are asked to contribute very little, Vos said. Aurora was responsible for finding a building owner willing to host the mural and for installing the brackets to hang it. The image of a streetscape lit by electric street lamps was chosen by Vos, her staff and the Aurora Historical Society.
Aurora was the first community in Illinois to install electric streetlights in the early days of last century, which led to its official nickname: the City of Lights.
Visit drivelincolnhighway.com for more information on the Lincoln Highway Coalition and the murals.
NOTE: A nice UPDATE ran the day after.
Tags:Aurora IL, highway history, historic highway, Illinois history, Lincoln Highway, mural dedication, Road trip, travel, two-lane roads
Posted in highways, history, Lincoln Highway, Road trip, roadside, signs, transportation | 1 Comment »
January 8, 2010
Much of the country is suffering from cold and snow, which means much of the Lincoln Highway is impassable. An Iowa TV station reports, “Deputies had to shut down part of old Lincoln Highway for a short time between Ames and Nevada.” A road worker added, “The road’s plugged up!” And once the road is cleared, it covers over right away so some trucks are not even attempting the job for safety.
My web site has selected weather updates along the Lincoln Highway at www.brianbutko.com/lh.gr.weather.html/. As you can see, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Iowa are below zero in addition to being snowed in.

Tags:2-lane travel, Lincoln Highway, Road trip, snow storm, snowy 2-lane travel, travel, winter driving
Posted in highways, Lincoln Highway, Road trip, travel | Leave a Comment »
January 7, 2010
The 2010 Illinois Lincoln Highway Visitor Guide from the Illinois Lincoln Highway Coalition is now available around the state or by mail. New features include a page about the completed interpretive gazebo project, a half page for the current interpretive mural project, and an easier-to-use map of the highway with icons for gazebos, murals and exhibits. Another change moved accommodation listings from each community to their own section.

Fill out the form here to get yours: www.drivelincolnhighway.com/visitorsguide.html or view and download a complete copy at www.drivelincolnhighway.com/LH2010guide.pdf/.
Tags:free guide, historic highway, Illinois, Lincoln Highway, road trip ideas, travel, vacation, visitors guide
Posted in highways, history, Lincoln Highway, lodging, Road trip, travel | 1 Comment »
January 6, 2010
Updating yesterday’s story on Brian Cassler’s efforts to deliver bricks to Nebraska, dad Jim sent this photo and info on where they came from:

The bricks were uncovered in the summer of 2007 when Tuscarawas Street (the Lincoln Hwy through downtown Canton, Ohio) was unearthed as a part of a street renovation project. Former LHA president Bob Lichty asked the city to save them to be used for a future project. When the Archway requested bricks, we were able to fill their request.
The bricks will be used for a recreated stretch of the transcontinental road at the Great Platte River Road Archway that spans I-80 near Kearney in central Nebraska. Cleaning the bricks and arranging their transport was an Eagle Scout project for Brian Cassler. Jim operates the Lincoln Highway Trading Post.
Tags:archway museum, highway history, history, I-80, Lincoln Highway, Nebraska, Ohio, preservation, roadway reproduction, transporting bricks
Posted in highways, history, Lincoln Highway, museum, Road trip, transportation, travel | 1 Comment »
January 5, 2010
An Eagle Scout project for Brian Cassler will be a gift for Lincoln Highway fans forever. The Kearney Hub reports that Cassler’s efforts will result in a recreated stretch of the transcontinental road at the Great Platte River Road Archway that spans I-80 in central Nebraska. The Kearney paper has 25 photos online, as seen in the screen capture below.

“The original paving bricks are getting pretty rare,” said Ronnie O’Brien, director of education/operations at the archway. “We were going to contract with a brick company to recreate a piece of the Lincoln Highway.” Instead, workers in Canton, Ohio, a city of 78,000, found original bricks in 2008 while reconstructing city streets. Brian Cassler of Canton took on a project of cleaning, organizing and palletizing the [2,200] bricks from the famous highway.
Cassler, along with trucker Tim Wunsch of Fort Morgan, Colo., delivered the load of pavers to the archway Sunday. “The city of Canton donated the bricks to the archway to be used in the display,” O’Brien said. “The bricks had been under other construction, and they were dirty and in a huge pile. They needed to be cleaned up and scraped before they could be hauled here.” Cassler, who took on the project as part of his Eagle Scout requirements, spent several months preparing the bricks. Cassler’s father runs the Lincoln Highway Trading Post in Canton.
Check out highway merchandise at the Lincoln Highway Trading Post online store.
The Omaha World-Herald also ran a feature story about the project.
Tags:archway museum, brick pavers, Canton OH, Eagle Scout project, historic highway, historic preservation, I-80, Kearney NE, Lincoln Highway, preserving brick roadway
Posted in highways, history, Lincoln Highway, museum, Road trip, transportation, travel | 1 Comment »
January 4, 2010
An article at Inside SU, a news site for Syracuse University, relates the long and interesting story of a statue along the Lincoln Highway. That rendering of Abraham Lincoln along JFK Boulevard in Jersey City was created in 1930 by well-known sculptor James Earl Fraser; his “End of the Trail” portraying an exhausted Indian on a horse was at the time adjacent to the western terminus of the Lincoln Highway in San Francisco.







Lincoln statue photo by Kyle Weaver, from Lincoln Highway Companion.
The article also tells the tale of an identical bronze Lincoln in the courtyard outside Maxwell Hall at Syracuse and how the duplicate came to be.
Tags:Abraham Lincoln, End of the Trail, James Earl Fraser, Jersey City, Lincoln Highway, Lincoln statue, NJ, sculpture, statuary
Posted in highways, history, Lincoln Highway, roadside, transportation | Leave a Comment »