LHA president Jan Shupert-Arick sent along some images from eastern Indiana courtesy of the Ternet Collection at the Allen County Public Library (downtown Fort Wayne, a block north of Washington Boulevard and in the midst of three different routings of the Lincoln Highway). The renovated library includes a cafe, bookstore, auditorium, art gallery, computer center, and underground parking.
The photo below shows Oberley Lunch and Standard Oil Station, 1941, on the Lincoln Highway at Zulu, Indiana, a tiny town just west of the Ohio border.
Which way is the Lincoln Highway? They both are! The original route curves past the old house and junkyard, while the bypass crosses the old road at left – this view looking east. Though the original road can be driven, that may change in the next few years as a big project might remake the mostly rural roads. Related to the same subject, the junkyard was in the news a number of years ago. Those are big clues – the only other one for now is that it’s in the eastern U.S. Any guesses as to the location, or need more clues?
Guess another clue is needed – it’s in Pennsylvania.
The California Lincoln Highway Association chapter will hold its state meeting on Saturday, April 12, noon, at Athens Restaurant, 6999 Dublin Blvd, Dublin. A caravan tour is scheduled afterward to visits sites in Dublin Canyon and East Castro Valley. LHA meetings (including lunch) generally run 1-5 hours or less, and the tour another hour. This one will explore recently discovered sections of the Lincoln in east Castro Valley and Dublin Canyon with a possible stop in Dublin itself. Contact Norm Root at normanroot [at] yahoo.com for more info.
A couple more great images from Randy Stone: the dining room with a bust of Abraham Lincoln, and the storefront in 1909. His family owned the restaurant along the Lincoln Highway in Marshalltown, Iowa, for more than a century, but they closed due to changing economics. Read my earlier blog posts here, here, and here.
The Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor folks received word that the Tunnel Diner in Jersey City, New Jersey, is slated for demolition. This classic factory-built diner (1950s interior, 1960s redo outside) at 184 14th Street is along the later Lincoln Highway, once it was rerouted between New York City and New Jersey due to the opening of the Holland Tunnel in November 1927. It had closed in 2007. The cover of the album Tunnel Diner (by Steve Mackay and the Radon Ensemble on Qbico Records) shows one of the diner’s most memorable features, a vertical neon sign. The diner reportedly appeared in the 1996 film City Hall about the accidental shooting of a boy in New York City, with a cast headed by Al Pacino, John Cusack, Bridget Fonda, and Danny Aiello.
Anyone know more about the closing and scheduled demolition?
LHA president Jan Shupert-Arick sent along this photo of Crown Hill Cemetery, the final resting place of Lincoln Highway founder Carl Fisher. It’s on West 38th Street in Indianapolis, Indiana. Dedicated June 1, 1864, Crown Hill’s 555 acres makes it the third largest non-government cemetery in the country. It will be a tour stop during the LHA’s 2009 conference, headquartered in South Bend.
Fisher is listed on their Noted Persons page, though there’s no mention of the Lincoln or Dixie highways that he conceived and nurtured:
Carl Fisher, 1874-1934, Section 13, Lot 42.
Co-Founder of Indianapolis Motor Speedway; developer of Miami Beach, Florida.
Also in the overall list is his infant son by wife Jane.
Another auto-related burial is Edward “Cannonball” Baker, winner of the first race at the Speedway and a racer in the first Indy 500.
Here’s a portion of an episode from the 1958 Disney TV show titled “Magic Highway USA” that looks at the future through transportation advancements. It portrays a centrally designed, controlled, world where slums and poverty are nowhere to be found, and work only occurs in office buildings.
The video has received hundreds of comments, and no wonder: the future never looked so good, or so bad. Some write that the world portrayed will never come to pass; others think much of it already has. Some of the technology itself is already passe. If nothing else, the inherent optimism disappeared long ago.
The narrator intones, “The shape of our cities will change, as expanded highway transportation decentralizes our population centers into vast urban areas. With the advent of faster expressways, the commuter’s radius will be extended many miles.
But just as the founders of the Lincoln Highway dreamed of a straight boulevard across the country within their own mostly rural context, the predictors here never saw the complications or drawbacks of their dream world. Indeed, postwar suburbia brought Interstates and decentralized population, but it quickly was derided as sprawl, not celebrated.
Also, the futurists who wrote the show had no idea gender roles would evolve, or that computers would infiltrate all aspects of life. Technological advances are only a small part of the evolving world. Like most predictions, the video has become an interesting relic of its own era.
On this Easter morning, we have an update from Jan Morrison on the restoration of 142-year-old St. Augustine’s Church, which overlooks the Lincoln Highway through Austin, Nevada. It is the oldest Catholic church building in the state.
A new roof has enabled workers to remove the interior ceiling scaffolding/supports. Jan is now pursuing a grant of $276,000 to finish the exterior, install ADA entrances, and restore the doors and windows so it can open for tours.
An interesting factoid is that when we re-did the roof, nearly 15 tons of pigeon and bat waste were removed. As a result, the ceiling and roof-ridge rose nearly 5 inches!
Also, the weight and aging of the roof structure had caused the side walls to move out up to 9 inches. Everything was brought true and the church is now secure for another 142 years!
However, had we not gotten in and fortified the roof structure, pulled in the walls, and removed the waste, it is pretty clear that this winter would have been a catastrophe. We had very, very heavy snowfalls that most likely would have cause the roof to cave in.
For more info and images, click here. And schedule extra time for Austin on your next trip across Nevada.
Randy Stone followed up the post about his family’s business — Stone’s Restaurant in Marshalltown, Iowa — with some great insights about the challenges in recent years. He also shared wonderful photos that we’ll spread out over a few posts.
“The restaurant had fallen on hard times so my part of the family quit our jobs in Illinois and returned to Marshalltown in 2002 to try to salvage the business. We got great support from news media, loyal patrons and many others but could not make ends meet. The last thing we wanted to do was compromise quality or change the nature of the business from what it had been for 100+ years. We put in a new kitchen, upgraded the menu, and generally tried to make it a place grandma would have been proud of. Unfortunately, I think fast food and chain operations have flourished while independant businesses have suffered. At least that seems to be the nature of things in this part of the woods. Great times while they lasted though.
“In the last few weeks we were open, I met a gentleman from Pakistan who had heard about the lemon chiffon pie from friends over there and, while visiting a company in Marshalltown, stopped by to try it. I was also looking through some old guest registers recently and found one from the 40’s that actress Zasu Pitts had signed. She used to appear in W.C. Fields movies. We also have a card that the old cowboy star, Tom Mix had signed. Both Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt gave speeches off the back of trains at the railroad depot that used to be across the street from the restaurant.”
A bizarre story that took place along the Lincoln Highway/US 30 appeared in The [Cedar Rapids, Iowa] Gazette. (Thanks to Van & Bev Becker and Russell Rein for the lead.)
Police chased a stolen doughnut delivery van on Highway 30 across Benton and Tama counties Thursday morning, finally arresting at gunpoint the Illinois man who was behind the wheel.
The doughnuts were untouched.
The van, owned by Donut Delite Ltd. of Moline, Ill., was stolen while its driver was making deliveries at a Rock Island, Ill., hospital about 5 a.m., the Tama County Sheriff’s Office reported. About 9 a.m., a Benton County sheriff’s deputy spotted the van driving west on Highway 30, discovered it was stolen and began following the vehicle….
The van’s driver ignored signals to stop and drove at speeds exceeding 100 mph until he reached the outskirts of Tama, driving around a set of stop spikes on the highway two miles east of town.
As the van approached Highways 30 and 63, the driver pulled into a Hardee’s parking lot and attempted to drive through the drive-through lane. But Tama County Deputy Chad Hansen rammed the driver’s-side door, and about 9:30 a.m., officers arrested the driver, Frank A. Alvarado, 46, of Moline….
The Donut Delite van was sent back to its owners in Moline Thursday — with its contents uneaten, said Tama County Chief Deputy Dave Ruopp.
“The owner of the business did tell us to take the doughnuts,” Ruopp said. “However, they were returned.”
With this being the first full day of Spring, maybe we can start our fair-weather road trips soon, but for now, rain and snow are still hitting parts of the Lincoln Highway. Click here to see my sampling of weather conditions along the Lincoln.
I went looking for photos from last Spring. Below is a Springtime view of a courthouse along the Lincoln – anyone know where? Like the last Mystery Photo, clues make it easy to identify.
The Lincoln Museum, which has hosted an exhibit on the Lincoln Highway, will close June 30, 2008, after 80 years as a major resource for the study of Abraham Lincoln’s legacy. It is operated by Lincoln Financial Foundation, the charitable giving arm of Lincoln Financial Group. The foundation owns one of the most extensive collections of Abraham Lincoln-related items — 230,000 items valued at $20 million — including a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation and one of 13 Thirteenth Amendments signed by Abraham Lincoln. Also among the 79 artifacts are a cane he carried and his children’s toys. The collection also includes 350 documents signed by Lincoln, some 18,000 rare books and pamphlets., and 200,000 clippings.
The museum cites declining attendance, averaging 40,000 per year, according to an article in The Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne. Priscilla Brown, vice president and chief brand officer for Lincoln Financial Group, said, in the paper’s words, that “the collection’s dispersal to other sites will better match the Lincoln Financial Foundation’s mission for the items, which is to ensure they get maximum exposure and remain accessible to the public…. The museum isn’t being closed as a cost-cutting measure and that it does not reflect any failure of the local museum staff.” The museum has about 20 staff members, most of whom will lose their jobs, and a “substantial” volunteer base.
The Lincoln Museum’s 19th century 5,000 photos and 7,000 prints is one of the most extensive in the world. According to Lincoln Financial, “Through invitation, the Lincoln Foundation will host a national informational session with potential public partners in late March to provide an understanding of the collection items and, in turn, discuss options for increasing visibility.”
An editorial laments the loss to the city, and the foundation’s reasoning that dispersing the collection will allow more people to see the parts in bigger venues:
Fort Wayne has lost out. A huge historical resource is, for all practical purposes, gone.
Oh, people will be able to drive to some other location, somewhere, and see some of the items, and they will be able to repeat the old refrain, “That was once in Fort Wayne….”
One expert told me [that] reactions have ranged from regret to anger to disappointment to shock to disbelief.
The image above, from the museum’s web site, shows a re-creation of Lincoln’s White House office, where visitors can view personal artifacts belonging to Lincoln, official documents, a chair from the Lincoln White House, a Senate copy of the Thirteenth Amendment, a Leland Boker souvenir edition copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, and personal and official letters of President Lincoln.
A second press release explains how Lincoln Financial plans to take a two-pronged approach to make its Lincoln Museum collection more accessible and visible in celebration of the Abraham Lincoln bicentennial in 2009.
Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell signed six bills into law on March 17, one of which renames the bridge carrying US 30 over Main Street in North Huntingdon Township, Westmoreland County, as the Veterans Bridge. See the actual House Bill 363 here.
According to the bill, the “designation honors the commitment, service and sacrifice of this country’s veterans and will serve as a tangible reminder of the courage and patriotism of the veterans who served this Commonwealth and this nation.” It will take effect in 60 days.
US 30 here is a bypass of the original Lincoln Highway that runs perpendicular to the Irwin business district. The above postcard copy shows the bridge under construction ca. 1939, with the business district behind it. The LH was being realigned in anticipation of the Pennsylvania Turnpike’s western terminus opening in 1940 about a mile to the east.
In 1919, the Transcontinental Motor Convoy crossed the U.S. to test the mobility of the military during wartime. It is perhaps more famous for a Lieutenant Colonel who decades later would become President Dwight Eisenhower. Twenty-four officers and 258 enlisted men took 81 motorized Army vehicles from Washington, D.C. to Gettysburg, and then followed much of the Lincoln Highway to San Francisco, arriving 62 days later. So much for mobility!
Lincoln and Lincoln Highway researcher Craig Harmon has lately been on the trail of primary sources from the convoy; below are just two of the many revealing documents Harmon has unearthed – another one about camp sanitation is especially intriguing! They add invaluable information to the tale of that cross-country trip. See his website for more information, or ask there to be added to his email updates.
Above, this report runs 35 pages and includes 20 b/w photos. Below, notice the official letterhead!
Click on the image below from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library & Museum, Abilene, Kansas, to visit its page about the convoy.
I received an advance copy a couple weeks ago of The Lincoln Highway Around Chicago by Cynthia L. Ogorek and have been enjoying it. A full review will run here shortly, but till then, you can read what the The Times of Munster, Indiana, says about it here.
Above is a photo from the book showing one of two streams that were crossed by the Ideal Section, a 1.3-mile “model” stretch of the Lincoln Highway between Schererville and Dyer, Indiana. A man crossing a temporary bridge at far right gives scale to the enormity of the job. Click HERE to enjoy a hi-res version. Courtesy University of Michigan, Special Collections Library, lhc2719.
Here’s a late-night photo from the Lincoln Highway in Illinois. Anyone able to identify the city?
UPDATE: OK, it’s been answered – check the comments section. If you want to guess, don’t look at the map below yet!! The first image is from Google Street Views.
I’ve highlighted the map to show the original Lincoln Highway in Red and the rerouting in Blue, where you’ll find the business.
The charred remains of Sleepy Hollow Tavern are sad to see. Johnathan Myers has posted photos of the place showing the destruction caused by a fire that started late February 25 along the Lincoln Highway west of Ligonier, Pennsylvania. Click the link above to view them.
Here’s an early postcard of the tavern in happier times….
The Lincoln Highway Buy-Way, a yard sale running along the road through 4 states, is set for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, August 7-9, 2008. Launched in Ohio a few years ago, it has grown to include Indiana, Illinois, and West Virginia. Homeowners and businesses set up sales or offer specials along the way, making for a fun yard sale/road trip. Ohio even distributes thousands of free color maps along the route showing the road and Buy-Way business supporters.
Above: During last year’s Buy-Way, we lunched at the Hot Dog Shop in East Liverpool, Ohio.
For more info, contact:
Mike Hocker, Executive Director
Ohio Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor
419-468-6773
Packgpwr@bright.net www.historicbyway.com/buyway.html
The Times Republicanreports that only spectators showed up for the public auction of Stone’s Restaurant in Marshalltown, Iowa. The 120-year-old eatery “under the vaiduct” was famous for its lemon chiffon pies, and had become a landmark along the Lincoln Highway:
The public sale that did not materialize Thursday was supposed to auction off Stone’s to the highest bidder, after the Internal Revenue Service recently seized the property from its owners for not paying taxes.
After those few silent moments, the IRS adjourned the sale, according to agency spokesperson Christopher Miller.
In such circumstances, the IRS will generally either decide to readvertise and conduct another public auction sale or release its hold on the property, Miller said, though the actual course of action to be taken for Stone’s Restaurant has not yet been determined.
In the event the IRS releases the property back to the Stone family, the taxes owed and liens attached will all remain in tact, according to IRS rules.
The Illinois Lincoln Highway Traveling Exhibit is nearing the end of its run at Sycamore Public Library, where it is displayed on the second floor through the end of March. The exhibit traces the history of the route across Illinois from Fulton, on the Iowa border, to Chicago Heights on the Indiana border. The exhibit was created by the Illinois Lincoln Highway Coalition and is sponsored at the library by the Sycamore Chamber of Commerce. Here it is at in July 2007 at the Joliet Area Historical Museum:
In April and May, it will be in Chicago Southland, site not yet announced;
June – DeKalb Oasis on I-88;
July, August, September – Morrison (no location yet);
October, November, December – Sterling;
January, February, March 2009 – New Lenox;
April, May, June – Chicago Southland area.
Sycamore is about 5 miles northeast of DeKalb via IL 23. The impressive-looking library was built in 1905 with $10,000 from the Carnegie Foundation. It was added to the National Register in 1978. Here’s a photo from its web site and a map from MapQuest showing how to get there from the LH.
Sycamore Public Library
103 East State Street
Sycamore, Illinois 60178
(815) 895-2500
A bit of warm weather has me thinking “road trip,” through cold weather admittedly has the same effect. Looking through last summer’s photos, one of the best treats along the Lincoln Highway is traveling eastward across Ohio in the evening and arriving in Lisbon after dark. No matter the hour, the corner entrance of the Steel Trolley Diner beckons with neon, stainless, and a warm glow inside — not to mention pies, home fries, coffee, and milk shakes. But for at least 6 years, the other side of town had brought a frown when I pass the abandoned Crosser Diner. It’s a c. 1944 Sterling diner made by J.B. Judkins of Merrimac, Mass., best known for their streamliner models featuring one or both ends rounded. This is a Dinette model, one of only 4 survivors.
Above: Waiting for customers, and a buyer, is the rare Crosser Diner in Lisbon, Ohio.
The diner (127 W. Lincoln Way) and adjacent service station were founded by Jimmy Hanna and later run by John Howard “Wimpy” Crosser and his wife Lorena Arter. It changed hands and struggled in recent decades due to its tiny size and having the main storage and kitchen downstairs, but it still featured solid diner fare and classic decor. One site reports a rumor of it moving but I’ve not seen confirmation or an update. It’s a treasure worth saving and reopening, with a cool little neon sign to match. Any diner fans or Ohio LH roadies know its status?
We’ve mentioned the recreation of Alice Ramsey’s cross country trip set for 2009, but readers can relive the original journey courtesy of author and researcher Gregory Franzwa. Alice recounted her adventures 54 years after her 1909 trip in Veil, Duster, and Tire Iron—problem is, it’s extremely hard to find a copy of that book. Franzwa has not only republished the original text but done us all the favor of unearthing where her travels literally took her, from roads to hotels to restaurants. Much of her route (well, west of Ligonier, Indiana) would become the Lincoln Highway four years later.
Alice Ramsey’s story was once well-known: on June 9, 1909, she and three female companions set off from NYC in a new, dark green Maxwell DA. She reached the Pacific 59 days later, becoming the first woman to drive coast-to-coast. The text and illustrations from her 1963 book are here along with 108 new endnotes that add lots of info as to the route and stops.
But the endnotes, following each chapter, are just part of the amazing supplemental material that’s been added. Almost half of Franzwa’s book consists of Chasing Alice, a conversational guide retracing the author’s research journeys. Filled with vintage ads, photos, and modern maps and pictures, the reader tags along as Franzwa tries to find remnants of the original trip. Along the way, fellow researchers, librarians, web sites, and friends help out, like Van and Bev Becker, who combed Mechanicsville, Iowa, for clues to Alice’s overnight stop there. Not only did they locate the buildings that housed the hotel, the livery stable, and the restaurant, but they dug up the hotel’s gold-embossed registers listing the four women travelers, their rooms, and even the time of their wake-up call!
The book ends with a preview of the work being done by Richard Anderson to rebuild a 1909 Maxwell DA and recreate the trip on its centennial. All parts of the book will have you yearning for the open road.
Alice’s Drive: Republishing Veil, Duster, and Tire Iron
by Alice Ramsey, Annotation and “Chasing Alice” by Gregory M. Franzwa
Patrice Press, 265 pp, 161 illustrations, 108 notes, index, softcover
ISBN 1-880397-56-0
A yearly week-long bicycle ride through Iowa sponsored by The Des Moines Register will follow much of the Lincoln Highway in 2008. The 36th annual RAGBRAI®, the “Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa,” will take place July 20-26, 2008. It is the longest, largest, and oldest touring bicycle ride in the world.
RAGBRAI was started in 1973 as a 6-day ride (not a race) across Iowa by two Register columnists; it’s still planned and coordinated by the newspaper and is now hosted by the Register’s front-page cartoonist, Brian Duffy.
RAGBRAI always begins near Iowa’s western border and ends along the eastern border at the Mississippi River. The route changes yearly but total mileage averages 472 miles (it’s 471 this year) while the daily mileage averages 68 miles. It is rarely flat; this year includes 22,500 feet of climb.
This year will launch from Missouri Valley but not pick up the LH till Jefferson, hit it from Ogden through Boone, again some of it in Ames, Nevada, Colo, and State Center, cross it at points in Le Grand and Tama, then pick it up in Chelsea through Belle Plaine, and meet is through Lisbon/Mt. Vernon, and finally cross it at Mechanicsville. The bike route will be nearby or parallel the LH for much of the time, though not always along it. Fora map you can zoom in on, visit Brian Duffy’s blog.
A week-long rider fee is $125, daily wristbands are $25, and include wristbands, route marking signage, baggage transportation, camping accommodations, discounts, sag wagon services, emergency medical services, traffic control, souvenir patch, daily route maps, and entries into drawing for a free bike for riders and other prizes for support vehicle drivers.
This clip from July 1989 features a couple (nic & sloy, as nicholsloy studio) visiting three sites in east-central Wyoming: Home Ranch, Dinosaur Graveyard, and Bosler. All are along a stretch bypassed decades ago by I-80, while stole business from them but left a pre-Interstate feel.
Home Ranch, 20 miles west of Medicine Bow, is, as Gregory Franzwa says in his WY LH book, “a ghostly reminder of pre-I-80 days.” The couple captures the long-closed gas station and motel, and a great “No Trespassing” warning. Heading east, they stop at Como Bluff, one of the greatest troves of dino fossils, but they merely read the historic marker. Then comes Bosler, almost completely abandoned then and now. There are great views of a car lot, motel, cafe, and dance hall before they pull over at Doc’s Store.
The clip is part of a larger movie, rock n roll roadtrip, a 7000-mile journey across the US and back.
Jim Steeley, of the Westmoreland County Historical Society and a LH researcher, came across a Lincoln Highway item in the September 30, 1915, Greensburg Daily Tribune, about rerouting the LH away from Madison, Pennsylvania. Problem is, the LH never went through Madison!
The article “Failure To Comply With Request May Lose Lincoln Highway” appeared on the front page of the paper describing Madison Borough’s refusal to improve its streets, therefore endangering the borough “to be side-tracked, and the Lincoln Highway removed from it.” It cited an engineer and a superintendent of county roads who “decided to change the route of the Lincoln Highway from Darragh through Herminie, leaving old Madison Borough to the left of the highway.” It would “not lengthen the road more than a fraction of a mile.”
But the Lincoln Highway is not known to have gone anywhere near Madison, let alone through it. To follow this route, Jim explains, the Lincoln Highway would have run through Greensburg to West Pittsburgh Street where it intersects with West Newton Street and hence to the West Newton Road (Rt 136) through Darragh, o to Madison (until it was bypassed) and Herminie, then north on Clay Pike through Rillton to Circleville at the top of Jacktown Hill, where it would join present-day US 30 west of Irwin. The map above shows the commonly known LH in red, the implied route in blue, and the topic of the article (routing through Madison) in green.
The first official LH road guide, published spring 1915, lists Greensburg followed (heading west) by Grapeville, Adamsburg, and Irwin—all along the red-marked route, similar to today’s US 30. Why, a half-year after the 1915 guide was published, was it believed that these towns were on the Lincoln Highway?
The New York Times is reporting that an “improvised explosive device” damaged an armed forces recruiting station at 3:43 a.m. in Times Square, the eastern terminus of the Lincoln Highway in New York City. No one was injured in what is being called a small blast. Most of the damage was to the front door and facade of the Armed Forces Career Center on a traffic island bounded by 43rd and 44th Streets, Seventh Avenue, and Broadway. Traffic through Times Square was reopened by 6:45 a.m. For the story with updates and comments, click the screen shot below from The New York Times:
Stone’s Restaurant, a popular eatery in Marshalltown, Iowa, since 1887, will be auctioned Thursday, March 6 at 10 am on the Marshall County Courthouse front steps. According to an article in The Times-Republican, the forced auction is due to debts of “$70,000 in mortgages and nearly $60,000 in local, state and federal back taxes spanning the past three years, according to an IRS notice of the public auction.”
Above: Stone’s sign towered above the viaduct. Photo courtesy Charles Biddle.
The restaurant was first closed in August 2006 by 4th generation owners Randy and Judy Stone. Their son Joe and wife Sarah tried reopening it in January 2007 but closed it again. Antiques and memorabilia that lined the walls have been removed. The restaurant is at 507 S 3rd Ave – or more famously, “Under the Viaduct” – that being the Third Avenue viaduct carrying traffic above it and the Union Pacific Railroad yard. It was a popular stop for Lincoln Highway travelers and anyone hungry for their famous lemon chiffon pie.
The Roadfood forum of Jane and Michael Stern has an interesting discussion about the closing. Randy Stone wrote that the decision to close in 2006 was difficult:
We found that, because of other pressing demands, we could not devote the time we needed to keeping the restaurant up to the standards that Grandma Anna would have approved of. Interestingly enough, after we made the decision, we found an old box of letters that included a story from the local paper dated a month before WWII ended in which Anna was quoted as saying she was going to close because, with the war effort, she could not get the quality of food she needed to meet her high standards. Along with this was a letter from Duncan Hines, who was a restaurant guidebook author at the time and a friend of hers, saying how sorry he was to hear she was closing. She reopened after the war ended and ran the restaurant until she died in 1969 and our Uncle Don took over.
Then in 2007, Randy reported the reopening on Valentine’s Day, “with a great response from old and new customers alike” and that they had “reintroduced a couple old variations on the chiffon pies. Strawberry Chiffon and Black Bottom which is chocolate chiffon on the bottom and lemon on top. Both mile-high of course.” But by January 2008, he wrote again to say it was closed and for sale due to a lack of busines: “Even though we benefited tremendously from wonderful reviews by Jane and Michael, national and local news and great word of mouth from folks like you, I think we were thought of as a ‘fancy’ place and lost business because of it. I guess I did not do a good enough job of marketing.”
Stone’s has been for sale through Coldwell Banker for a reasonable-sounding $125,000 probably because the article states that the purchaser “will inherit the property and several debt obligations…. After the auction, they [Stone family] also have 180 days to get it back, for the auction price plus interest.”
UPDATE: Jim Bacino of Coldwell Banker wrote to say, “The sale tomorrow is a federal tax sale and will only result in a lein against the property. Title will not be transferred until a sale is made and all leins cleared. It is on the market for $125,000.00 and is a turn key operation. All equipment is uncluded.” Contact Jim if you or someone you know is interested in rescuing the landmark restaurant.
Lincoln Highway Days treasurer Linda Griffith reports that the theme of this year’s celebration in Nevada, Iowa, will be “25 years of Family Fun.” Along with the carnival and rodeo, there will be “Crafts and Arts and Flea Market,” food vendors, dances for teens and adults, Klassy Kruisers antique car club from Ames, and a display of antique tractors. The parade on Saturday will start along Lincolnway at 9:30 a.m. and the all-day big celebration will follow at the Story County 4-H grounds located lst Street and I. Avenue. Below are some images from www.lincolnhighwaydays.com from past events.
The interestingly named town of Nevada, Iowa, will celebrate its 25th annual Lincoln Highway Days this August 22, 23, and 24, 2008. Info for the coming year will soon be posted on www.lincolnhighwaydays.com. The event usually includes a carnival, dance, rodeo, and a big parade.
Nevada is east of Ames and just west of the popular Niland’s Cafe/Colo Motel. The original Lincoln Highway Day in October 1983 was actually called the Old 30 celebration to coincide with the completion of a railroad overpass west of Nevada.
Carnival of Souls, a low-budget horror film directed by Herk Harvey in 1962, never achieved much fame or acclaim, yet it’s become a a cult favorite and is often mentioned as an influence by other filmmakers. It’s theme of a woman caught between life and death was unusual for its time and is cited as a reason that it rises above similar films. For Lincoln Highway fans, it offers a glimpse of Saltair, the famed lakeside bathing resort west of Salt Lake City, opened 1893 and connected to the city by rail. It later became a regular stop for cross-country travelers.
Above: The Moorish domes of Saltair are represented in the Carnival of Souls movie poster.
The lead character, Mary, is in a car wreck and assumed drowned. Instead, she apparently lives, becoming a church organist, but is haunted by a ghostly man. Her journey culminates in a trip to an ominous pavilion, which takes place at Saltair.
The creepiness in Carnival of Souls comes mostly from the dreamlike atmosphere instead of cheap scares or special effects. The pavilion keeps drawing her until she visits it in the climax. This clip, part 11 of 11 on YouTube, features great views of Saltair before it burned again in 1970. The first minute is spent with Mary reflecting, but then she is spooked, screams, and finding herself in her 1960 Chevy, backs out of a garage. At 1:56 we see her driving the approach road to Saltair and seconds later walking through it. About 3:30 ghouls arise from the lake to dance (or at least that’s my amateur interpretation of the action). About 5:50 they begin chasing her – she tried hiding among the support poles underneath. Views of the exterior start at 6:53 and a minute later it returns to the scene of the crash that started the movie and we learn her fate. WARNING: The scares are tame and the pace slow by today’s standards but nonetheless might be unsettling to some.
Click the map above for a full-size view of the Lincoln Highway.
Now available: Lincoln Highway Companion features detailed maps and places to eat and stay. Click the book to buy it on Amazon.
Click the Greetings book below to purchase the ultimate guide to the history and route of the Lincoln Highway!
A 
The Lincoln Highway Buy-Way, a yard sale running along the road through 4 states, is set for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, August 7-9, 2008. Launched in Ohio a few years ago, it has grown to include Indiana, Illinois, and West Virginia. Homeowners and businesses set up sales or offer specials along the way, making for a fun yard sale/road trip. Ohio even distributes thousands of free color maps along the route showing the road and Buy-Way business supporters.
