Posts Tagged ‘Lincoln Highway’

A poem lamenting change along the road, in life

February 21, 2008

On OpEdNews.com, an entry by Vi Ransel will sound familiar themes to many Lincoln Highway News readers.

IL_barn_62505_0003
Above: Another farm sprouts housing along the Lincoln Highway, west of Chicago, June 2005.

In Memoriam

The place I grew up in the 50s is gone now.
Oh, the land is still there,
but the quilt-like farm fields blanketing the rolling hills,
the deciduous forests and the meandering streams
have been overtaken and replaced by an invidious, invasive species
of four-lane byways with a broad, medial stalk of conquering concrete
sprouting small, almost identical malls like profligate weeds dispersing seeds
every mile or so along the length of the Lincoln Highway.

One last dairy farm remains, attached to the Route 30 vine.
Contained by concrete, cows graze in green pastures
as fossil fuel-burners blindly whiz by emitting a life-exhausting fog.
The farm, a delicate anachronism, is out of place in its own place,
a symbol of a sustainable way of life set like a jewel
on the artificial energy-sustained existence
clinging tenuously to the grid by an electrical thread
generated by the last drops of once living,
long dead bodies of the plant and animal ancestors
of those same dairy cows.

Vi’s works appear widely both in print and online. She conducts Poetry Workshops and gives readings in Central New York. Her latest chapbook is “Sine Qua Non Antiques (an Arcanum of History, Geography and Treachery).

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=6021

Cold weather hits LH from coast to coast

January 25, 2008

My web site has long had a Lincoln Highway weather map featuring conditions from 12 cities across the country. This morning, as I walked through 7° temperatures in PIttsburgh, I wondered about the rest of the country. As you can see, only San Franciscso can boast of warm temperatures (47°). The rest of the country is 25° or less, with 3 of the 12 cities below zero!

BB_LHweatherMap

Wyoming DOT has a nice collection of web cams from I-80, which is often parallel to US 30/LH. The roads this morning look pretty clear in the east, but a few, like Evanston at 7 am (seen below), still look slippery:

WY_EvWeather

Stop-action video of DeKalb to Link Wray tune

January 4, 2008

Here’s a fun video of downtown DeKalb, Illinois, assembled from thousands of still images, which are themselves a bit distorted in day-glo colors. The view races up and down Lincoln Highway at a stop-action 180 mph to the tune of “High Way” by guitar legend Link Wray (sounding like a faster version of his big hit, Rumble). It’s a jumble of imagery, but anyone familiar with DeKalb will recognize many landmarks – even if seen only for a second.

Illinois gets grant for Murals and Gazebos on LH

December 13, 2007

IL Post mural

The Illinois Lincoln Highway Coalition (ILHC) recently received $443,000 in federal grants for its National Scenic Byway program, a designation the Lincoln Highway through Illinois received in 2000. The funds will be used over the next 3 years to produce interpretive murals in 40 communities along the 179-mile route through the state. Each mural will interpret the history and heritage of the highway and its impact on the communities, and a companion brochure will summarize their locations and messages.

Diane Rossiter, Associate Director of ILHC, says, “We are excited to begin this new project! This money, plus the $40,000 we just received from the state and the Illinois Bureau of Tourism will make it all happen. Our hope is that visitors will be compelled to travel Illinois Lincoln Highway and discover all that it has to offer.”

IL Post mural close up

Three murals are already complete: Creston was unveiled in May 2006, DeKalb in October ’06, and Rochelle in May ’07 (see photo and closeup above, courtesy ILHC). Some of the communities slated to receive a mural are Ashton, Byron, Cortland, Dixon, Genoa, Oregon, Rock Falls, Sterling, and Sycamore, not all of which are directly along the LH, but are considered withing the “corridor.” That can generate broader interest and awareness but may lead to some confusion.

ILHC will start work on 20 interpretive gazebos in the Spring in such communities as DeKalb, Dixon, Oregon, and Rochelle. Rossiter says,

“Our intent is to place a historical mural in each community that lines the highway and those along the corridor also. The communities will be charged with finding a building location and researching possible story ideas. Each mural will be painted on substrate material and will be mounted to the side of the building. This works much better than painting on the building itself, because it can be taken down for upkeep or if the building needs repairs. When all are completed, a brochure will be created detailing each mural and its location along with the location of the interpretive gazebos. There are no gazebos completed as of yet, but our hope is to begin construction in the spring.”

Visit www.drivelincolnhighway.com or phone (815) 547-3854 for more information on the Lincoln Highway through Illinois.

Back on Board – Lincoln Highway Association

November 28, 2007

I’m once again on the Lincoln Highway Association board. I was a founding director in 1992, representing Pennsylvania, then left to raise kids and write books. I’m still doing those but will be filling a vacancy in an At-Large position. For the full list of directors, visit the LHA’s web site: www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/about.

LHA banner

Plan to attend the LHA conference in Evanston, Wyoming, June 17-21, 2008.

Mystery Photo 1: Outhouse, Gas Pump, Tractor

November 17, 2007

Weekends seem like a good time to run shorter stories. First up is an interesting shot from John and Lenore Weiss of an outhouse and tractor – know where it’s at? We’ll start with a general clue that it’s a well-known LH stop in the Midwest. Please leave your guesses by clicking Comments below the picture.

JLW_Outhouse

Click the Lincoln Highway Map

November 7, 2007

For those not familiar with the route of the Lincoln Highway, I now have a map available based on the one in my Greetings book. Click the thumbnail below or the really tiny one to the right and you’ll get a US map up to 19 inches wide, just like this one:

Butko Greetings LH map - Med

The first generation represents the “Proclamation Route” of 1913. Towns like Trenton, NJ; Marion, OH; and Ogden, UT were quickly removed (though Ogden would later be put back on).

You’ll also see the Colorado Loop, which the LHA soon regretted but nonetheless approved of for two years. Note also that there were two ways around Lake Tahoe in eastern California. West of Sacramento, the 1928 rerouting is being debated of late as to whether the change was officially endorsed by the LHA board. It’s included because that’s where the LHA’s concrete posts went in 1928.

The first tally of the Lincoln Highway’s length was 3,389 miles (including Camden and Marion but not Ogden), though it would always be in flux due to bypasses and realignments. More than a decade later, the now more-famous US Route 66 would run 2,448 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles (though it likewise would vary in length).

Route 66 Reviews the Lincoln Highway

November 5, 2007

Greetings cover 2Well, not the roads but a Route 66 site and a Lincoln Highway book. Ron Warnick, whose Route 66 News was a prime inspiration for this site, just reviewed my Greetings from the Lincoln Highway, a book 10 years in the making. He was very kind in his praise – check it out or look for the Route 66 News RSS feed in the right-hand column here for regular updates of his posts.

I’m working hard to finish a follow-up book, Lincoln Highway Companion, a glove-compartment-size guide with driving maps and recommendations of places to eat, visit, and stay. And there’s LOTS out there on the Lincoln, more than any book or site could possibly capture, so don’t worry, there’s still endless surprises awaiting those who like to explore off the beaten path.