Two stories tell two different tales of Lincoln Cafes located along the Lincoln Highway in Iowa.
The Cedar Rapids Gazette reports that “Matt Steigerwald, owner and chef of the Lincoln Cafe in Mount Vernon, has retained his title as the Midwest region’s ‘Prince of Porc’ after winning the Cochon 555 competition for the second straight year…. Cochon means ‘pig’ in French. The competition features five chefs, five pigs and five winemakers in 10 cities. The chefs are challenged to use a whole pig to create a series of dishes.”
As the murder trial continues for the owner of the Lincoln Cafe in Belle Plaine, Iowa, LHA director Van Becker reports that the well known restaurant still sits idle and nothing inside has been touched for months.
The Mountain View Inn east of Greensburg, Pa., a long-time landmark along the Lincoln Highway, was sold earlier this year. Reports were that the new owners wanted to build a shopping plaza, and indeed, people have been writing about the inn’s destruction. Here’s a note from blog reader John: “the original section of the hotel has been razed. The only sections saved from destruction are those built this decade.”
The Pittsburgh Tribune Reviewreported last month that asbestos concerns had halted the dismantling following an auction of its all its contents. A state Department of Environmental Protection inspector “ordered the building secured until it could be examined to determine if asbestos is present. As a result, Altman dozens of successful bidders had to wait to collect their purchases.
Brothers James and Daniel Snyder …
purchased the property for more than $2.5 million after the inn, restaurant and bar closed in January. The real estate developers plan to raze part of the structure to make way for commercial development. The sale included the inn, 14 acres and a house on the property…. The hotel’s Mountain Laurel wing overlooking Route 30 will be retained as a 53-room lodge run by about 10 employees, according to plans presented this week to township officials.
The 2nd Annual Iowa Lincoln Highway Motor Tour will cross the midwestern state on August 28–30. The Friday-to-Sunday trip begins in the west at Desoto Bend and heads eastward with stops in Carroll, Jefferson, Boone, Nevada, Marshalltown, Tama, Youngville, Cedar Rapids, Mechanicsville, Lowden, and ending at Clinton. Here are some photos from the 2008 tour by Bryan Osberg.
ABOVE: Approaching the Union Pacific Bridge via old brick section of Lincoln Highway, just past Cornell College in Mt. Vernon.
ABOVE: The first stop on the second day was Youngville Cafe.
ABOVE: Lunch day 3 at the Brickstreet Station in Woodbine.
Visit the Iowa LHA page for a full itinerary and more info.
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.
LHA director Mike Buettner sent info and images from a Mid-Ohio Chapter/Lincoln Highway Association work day a few weeks ago. The original brick pillar that is one mile east of Oceola (Crawford County) was in dire need of repair. Saturday, led by Richard Taylor, members of the chapter did those repairs.
According to my road guide research, this pillar “was set in 1921 to commemorate the completion of the bricking of this part of the highway, and is the only survivor of what may have been eight pillars in Crawford County west of Bucyrus. Past-president Esther Oyster has determined that these brick pillars were set at one-mile intervals, in a span of seven miles from Bucyrus to the Wyandot County Line, and has thus far been able to verify the construction of six of these pillars.”
Following up on last week’s Lincoln Highway adventures of Bill and Karen, another couple, Dave and Peg, are driving a 1929 Model A across the country. They picked up the Lincoln Highway west of Canton, Ohio, and are heading to California. (Note, they just detoured off the LH to see Mount Rushmore.) Follow along at model-a-adventure.blogspot.com/.
Another couple, Kathie and Tony Mandra, have already reached the west coast but you can read of their trip, and side trips, at lincolnhwy.blogspot.com/.
And Chris Hutter is riding his 2006 Harley Davidson FLHR west from Pittsburgh. Follow him at hutmo.blogspot.com/.
Perhaps the most fun, colorful blog ever to follow a Lincoln Highway road trip is being posted by Bill and Karen McKibbon. They set out from Ontario, Canada, and joined the LH at Joliet, Illinois. They’re following the old road west to the Pacific (at which time they continue northward), taking tons of photos like above: their car at Preston’s in Blelle Plaine. Bill told me they’re using my Greetings from the LH and LH Companion (buy ’em on Amazon!) and noted how quickly things change: “Some places no longer exist that you wrote about, some things that deserve a marker or plaque don’t, but we are finding the old road as best we can.”
That’s Bill at the Seeding Mile in Grand Island and Karen (they LOVE finding great desserts) in Cheyenne. Don’t pick on her Route 66 shirt — LHA HQ was out of shirts!
LH boosters also should note that almost every cafe they stopped at was CLOSED! In early JULY!!
Bill makes some other interesting observations. This is from Kensinger’s cool deco station in Grand Island, Nebraska, which was featured (along with owner Dick Grudzinski in the PBS special about the LH):
Dick pointed the way to the original early 1900’s concrete behind his gas station. It is very overgrown with weeds and long abandoned. What really surprised me is that there is no sign or plaque acknowledging what this concrete represents. The Lincoln Highway is not promoted like Route 66 is. What a shame.
Or this:
We loaded up the car and drove to Shelton NE where we wanted to visit the The Lincoln Highway Visitors Center. 10 AM on a Saturday morning and this place is locked up tight. There was a notice in the door with a phone number to call and someone would come over. We peaked in the door and the windows and there wasn’t anything in there that we felt was worth disturbing someone. I am sure they had something important to do or they would be here greeting Lincoln Highway travellers. There were no t-shirts to purchase, no postcards, basically it appeared to be an empty room, with a few things hung on the wall.
Or this
We mentioned to the lady at the [Sod House] Museum that we were driving on the Lincoln Highway and she said, “oh you will want to head North then to get on Highway 30” We said no, that we were driving the original Lincoln before there ever was a Highway 30. She thought Highway 30 was the Lincoln. This poor highway, no one seems to care much or know much about it. Here we are from Ontario Canada, and we know more than the locals.
Well, I guess there’s something to be said for not being over-commercialized….
I spent Monday driving across Ohio and Indiana, heading to the annual Lincoln Highway Assn. conference in South Bend. I followed many old stretches of the LH and took many photos — so many that the 6 hour trip took me 14 hours. my camera is overloaded, its batteries are dead, and my head is kinda hurting but it was a great time, I got great photos, and met some very nice people. Here are some photos from the trip.
TheCanton Repository reports that a classic 9-unit motel along the Lincoln Highway in eastern Ohio is for sale. Fans will recognize it as being at the eastern end of the famous brick stretch of Baywood Street.
Palmantier’s Motel, opened 1947, was purchased four years ago by Scott Segeti, “lured to these parts by the beauty of nearby farm fields, grazing cattle, grassy meadows, chirping birds, fresh air and an opportunity to be his own boss.” Now Segeti is trying to sell the motel, swimming pool, two houses, and 3.25 acres for $425,000.
“I thought it was a gift from God,” he said.
He bought it on land contract from longtime owner Carolyn Koontz in 2005. He immediately digitized the motel’s old phone system. He hard-wired room fire alarms. He touched up units here and there. He moved into one four-bedroom house on the land and rented out the other.
Four years later, Segeti isn’t sure he can make it work.
The bad economy has squeezed the motel. Even for $50 a night, sometimes not a single room is rented. Its airy one- and two-bed country decor units remain empty. Most guests these days are building contractors who follow jobs into the area, stay for a few weeks and move on….
“It would be the ideal business for a retired couple,” Segeti said. “This place still has the ambiance of the 1950s. From a time when the whole world moved at a much slower pace.”
I managed to catch pink eye – ouch – so can’t type much but thought Lincoln Highway fans might be interested in seeing how ABC News weekend anchors are traveling Route 66 west (unexplainedly skipping Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas). Kate Snow and her sister drive the first two segments in a 1958 Ford Fairlane hardtop convertible (seen here at the former U-Drop Inn Cafe, Shamrock, Texas). Read the story HERE.
NOTE: ABC has disabled embedding. Below is the first segment from another source.
Here are the ABC links, including the second video: ONE and TWO.
The final two segments will feature the two male anchors heading further west.
Click the map above for a full-size view of the Lincoln Highway.
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