As I prepare to hand to my publisher the images for my next book, Lincoln Highway Companion, I’m left with hundreds that just don’t fit. They’re fine photos, but I have a page count that I can’t exceed and it’s already filled. So here’s the first of the runner-ups.
I’ve photographed this neon sign for at least 15 years. It’s in West Virgina very close to the Pennsylvania border. The sign and entrance face the parking lot – in the rear of the nightclub! The Lincoln Highway opened here in 1928 – I’ve always wondered if it originally came down this side and was later moved to the front side of the building to make the road straighter.
In this other angle I posted on Flickr, you can see that under the Carriage Club neon is lettering for what must be an earlier name, the Half Moon Club. Any West Virginians know more about the club or the road here?
“You ever wake up sometimes maybe around 3 o’clock in the morning, you look up at the ceiling, the blackness – you feel that terrible urge to see it all, to get on the road. To smell the pine trees, watch all the rivers, see all the skies, climb all the hills….”
Jean Shepherd was a humorist known to millions through books, radio, and live shows, but is best known to modern audiences for co-writing and narrating (as grown-up Ralphie) the 1983 film A Christmas Story. He also had a very popular TV show: Jean Shepherd’s America, produced by WGBH (PBS) Boston, aired 13 shows in 1971 and 13 in 1985. (They’re available on DVD, or learn more here.) This clip, from the last show of the 1971 season, is the final segment and end credits. Jean and his crew are snowbound in Wyoming at Holding’s Little America motel and truck stop, along the Lincoln Highway and I-80. During the 4-minute video, he talks, in his measured prose, about life on the road, and the American urge to keep moving.
Automobile magazine copy editor Rusty Blackwell bought a 1967 MGB/GT Special through Craiglist this past fall. The challenge was getting it from San Francisco back to Ann Arbor, Michigan. His adventures with early snows and faulty fuel pumps are fun reading, even if much of it is along I-80. He does detour onto the Lincoln Highway briefly, such as Soda Springs, California; Rawlins, Wyoming; and Sidney and Gothenburg, Nebraska. He also took lots of photos. In all, his 2,300-mile trek that he hoped would take 4 days took 8. Click HERE for the first of his 9 posts. Here’s a screen shot of the opening page:
In our review of Traveling the … Historic Three by John and Lenore Weiss (which follows the Lincoln and Dixie Highways and Route 66), I mentioned Elaine E. Egdorf. Not only does she manage the Drivin’ the Dixie website, but as chairman of the Village of Homewood Heritage Committee, she got a Dixie Highway marker for Homewood, south of Chicago. The committee and the Homewood Historical Society (she was founding president) paid for the marker, which was dedicated in 2003 with a large ceremony. It was re-dedicated in 2005 as part of the kick-off for Illinois State Historical Society Markers week. The Dixie Highway communities also were recognized with a Superior Achievement Award from the ISHS for the unique way they pulled together towns, historical societies, and chambers of commerce to promote Illinois history.
The Dixie Highway was another idea of Lincoln Highway founder Carl Fisher. His north-south path was said to have been created so his wealthy auto-industry pals could more easily travel south to Fisher’s Miami Beach land developments. The Dixie was not as direct as the Lincoln, but rather a braid of roads from Sou. Ste. Marie, Michigan, to Miami, Florida. The route is now identified throughout Illinois (except Chicago) with red, white, and blue metal street signs, street pole banners, and state markers. One of at least six intersections of the Lincoln and Dixie Highways is at Chicago Heights: the roads run together for almost two miles there and their meeting is commemorated by the Arche Memorial Fountain.
Above: Redd Griffin, Oak Park; Elaine Egdorf, Homewood; Arthur Martin, Chicago, at the rededication in 2005. All are on the Board of Directors of the Illinois State Historical Society.
This group’s Triangle Tour has actually evolved into Drivin’ the Dixie, a moving car show and tour from Blue Island to Momence. A passport listing events in towns along the route can be stamped at historic sites; each town donates two prizes, and for each stamp, participants get a free raffle ticket. Last year about 200 cars total participated, mostly vintage cars. It’s nice to see such support for a road that played such a big role in early auto history.
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.”
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.
Remember those great gift shops and souvenir stands with all kinds of wacky stuff to buy? And how little (if anything) your parents let you get?? Well you’re grown up — you can stop now and stock up. BUT WAIT! Where’d they all go? Yes, very few survive, so when you do see one, it’s even more important you stop — to satisfy your souvenir craving and to help keep the place in business.
Thankfully in the 20 years I’ve been stopping at Mister Ed’s Elephant Museum, it’s only gotten BETTER. Ed Gotwalt received his first elephant as a wedding gift in 1967 and began collecting anything related to the animal. When his collection outgrew the house, he opened a general store to display them. The current location has old-fashioned candy, wacky new candy creations, elephant-themed gifts, and of course, roasted peanuts. The museum holds more than 6,000 elephant collectibles. (Miss Ellie, the talking elephant outisde, says 4,000 in the video below, but I think they forget to tell her the most recent figure.)
Mister Ed’s is located at 6019 Chambersburg Road (between old and new Lincoln Highway routes) between Gettysburg and Chambersburg. It’s open daily 10 am – 5 pm, and admission is FREE.
Try out this video — my first on YouTube! — taken in October with my still digital camera’s video option. It’s only 20 seconds long but you’ll hear the fiberglass Miss Ellie Phant talk a bit about the place.
Here’s a relaxing ride on the Lincoln Highway/US 40 starting just west of Donner Summit in California.
The motorcycles (one following another) head east, top the summit, cross the Rainbow Bridge (site of the recent bear rescue), and pull over for a view of Donner Lake below. Then it’s back of the road among the pine trees and gentle curves as the highway descends the mountain. Much smoother than most videos shot form a moving vehicle. Note that the bridge is a later alignment – the original Lincoln Highway curved under the tracks of the Transcontinental Railroad, to the right of the bridge, and can still be walked.
Video by Mellowmike43, added August 2007, with music by Arlo Guthrie.
Above: Youngville Station, a beautiful restoration effort on the Lincoln Highway west of Cedar Rapids. When it’s open, visitors will find great pie and a historical display. The photos here show places NOT in the radio tour. Photo courtesy of G. Januska.
Gianofer Fields of Chicago Public Radio has completed her Lincoln Highway tour, but after 5 entries (plus a launch segment), she stopped along the Lincoln only 1 of those 6 days. As she admitted on the third day, ” I’m starting to rethink my whole Lincoln Highway plan. Maybe I should forget my linear route and think of the highway as a springboard.” Here are her topics:
Launch: Burlington’s Crookedest Street
1: Eldon’s American Gothic house
2: Missouri Valley’s Welcome Center and Museum of Religious Arts
3: Elkhorn’s Danish Windmill
4: Amana Colonies
5: Le Claire’s Buffalo Bill Museum
All very interesting, but only #2 is along the Lincoln Highway. What did she miss?
Trying to think of a list as quickly as possible, I came up with:
• Smith Brothers General Store in Clinton
• Cedar Rapids Museum of Art and Grant Wood Studio
• Youngville Station (top photo)
• Lincoln Cafe and Preston’s station in Belle Plaine
• King Tower Cafe (above) and LH bridge in Tama
• Shady Oaks Tree House east of Marshalltown
• Niland’s Cafe in Colo
• Three concrete bridges on the old road near Grand Junction
• Lincoln statue and carillon tower in Jefferson
• Moss markers with Lincoln busts north of Scranton (below)
• Spanish-deco Park Motel in Dennison
• Woodbine’s brick streets and Brick Street Station
• Loess Hills winding road across from Omaha
There’s lots more, from great old signs and garages to wonderful people in the diners and coffee shops along the way. What is your favorite?
On Tuesday, Chicago Public Radio’s Gianofer Fields reported from her LH trip that her reception at the Harrison County Historical Village and Iowa Welcome Center along the Lincoln Highway in western Iowa was not very welcoming. She has even subtitled that day’s entry, “What happens when the welcoming center isn’t so welcoming?”:
FIELDS: Tell me about this place that we are standing in.
HEIM [center employee]: Well, this is the welcome center that we are standing in.
I suppose that I should have taken that massive silence as a sign that the welcome center lady wasn’t in the mood for company. When I saw the old cabin perched on a small hill by the highway; I thought it had, “Stop here roadside attraction,” written all over it. So I did in hopes of learning more about it.
HEIM: Well, it has a wealth of information and antiques in it and it takes about an hour to go through, self guided usually.
Did I just get the bums rush? Clearly, I am on my own.
Above: Half the operational expenses for the village/welcome center are covered by sales in the Iowa Products Store and village admission fees.
I asked center coordinator Kathy Dirks about the two things that seemed to bother Ms. Fields—the lack of enthusiasm and the self-guided tour. Here is her response:
I wish I would have been here and that I could be here everyday to guarantee every person’s experience that steps through our front door would be stellar and involve the highest level of customer service. Unfortunately, it’s not humanly possible because we are open 361 days a year. So on many weekends and other days when I’m unable to be here due to meetings, vacations, etc., we pay some of our volunteers to man the facility. Almost all are elderly because the hours are limited and the pay low due to our limited budget. (My opinion would be almost all of them would be totally intimidated by a surprise microphone interview as well.)…
Not to make any excuses for what happened because there are none, but it can also be somewhat of a challenge to work at this particular facility because of the volume of knowledge the volunteers/workers are expected to know about Iowa – from everything tourism-related, to agriculture, to state laws, to about anything else that could cross your mind. I’ve worked here 13 years and still get questions I’ve never been asked before. I would have hoped though that everyone working here could have answered questions about this facility. I see much more intensive training needs to happen.
Our goal at the Harrison County Historical Village and Welcome Center has always been to supply the best service possible. I believe that on many occasions we do succeed in achieving that goal based on comments from customers and the amount of repeat business we receive. I absolutely hate when it doesn’t happen. Unfortunately, I can’t repeat Gianofer Fields experience here and make everything perfect. I can only learn from it and do whatever possible so it isn’t repeated….
We only offer self-guided tours on a regular basis and state that in our brochure. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough business, nor large enough income, to offer guided tours on a regular basis. The facility sits on 17 acres and the museum is in five different buildings covering about 4 1/2 acres. On many days, we only have one person that works the entire facility – beginning people on museum tours, answering welcome center questions, waiting on people in the gift shop, sweeping the floor, etc. If I had been here by myself, I would not have been able to give Gianofer Fields a guided tour of the museum either without locking the door to the welcome center/gift shop.
It’s obvious Ms. Dirks cares an awful lot about customer satisfaction while struggling with limited staff and resources. And Ms. Fields (who has not responded to my emails, though the station’s Director of Communications did one time) would probably understand these points too if she had known or been told in a more positive manner. Maybe Ms. Fields can return some day and give us all an update.
The S.S. Grand View Ship Hotel was perhaps the best-known, most-visited landmark along the 3,300+ miles of Lincoln Highway. The famous roadside attraction was 17 miles west of Bedford, Pennsylvania, but unfortunately burned in 2001. With my Lincoln Highway Companion book ready for the editors, I’m starting on my next book, a fun look at the Ship. I first wrote about the Ship in 1989 and have been gathering information, recollections, and photos since then.
People took lots of snapshots there, and though they probably took movies, few of those surface, so it’s exciting to see this rare film from 1972! (Total time 3:32) Roger Shaulis shoots out the back window as they speed east on the Lincoln Highway through the Seven Mile Stretch, passing coal trucks. About 45 seconds in, they arrive at the Ship and go to the deck for the view and some goofing. The family jumps on the Turnpike for the final minute, passing through three tunnels on their way to New Jersey.
Click the map above for a full-size view of the Lincoln Highway.
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Click the Greetings book below to purchase the ultimate guide to the history and route of the Lincoln Highway!
Another fun book! The Ship Hotel: A Grand View along the Lincoln Highway recalls the greatest roadside attraction along the coast-to-coast road.
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In our review of Traveling the … Historic Three by 
Lincoln Highway News 