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The Lincoln Highway was a dirt path in its early years. This postcard shows Seven Mile Stretch west of Bedford, Pennsylvania.
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Teibel's no longer offers tourist cabins as in the top postcard, but remains a large, popular restaurant in western Indiana.
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GREETINGS FROM THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY By Brian Butko "Traveling the Lincoln Highway through the eyes, heart, and spirit of Brian Butko brings back an important part of America we yearn to keep, which this book does triumphantly with color, zeal, and fortitude." John Baeder, author of Diners, Sign Language, and Gas, Food, & Lodging The Lincoln Highway preceded Route 66 by a dozen years, runs a third longer than the famed highway, and crosses the country from Atlantic to Pacific. Traversing fourteen states from Times Square in New York to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, this large-format book follows the highway in both space and time to diners, gas stations, ice cream stands, tourist cabins, historic landmarks, and roadside attractions. Excerpts from memoirs and old postcards give a feel for what early motoring was really like-the good, the bad, and the muddy. Brian Butko is the author of The Lincoln Highway: Pennsylvania Traveler's Guide (0-8117-2497-2) and Klondikes, Chipped Ham, and Skyscraper Cones: The Story of Isaly's (0-8117-2844-7), coauthor of Diners of Pennsylvania (0-8117-2878-1), and editor of Western Pennsylvania History magazine. He was a founding director of the Lincoln Highway Association. Visit www.brianbutko.com to learn more about Brian Butko's books.
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LINCOLN HIGHWAY, FIRST ROAD TO CROSS THE U.S., EXPLORED IN NEW BOOK From New York to San Francisco, the Lincoln Highway connects America's east and west Coasts. Greetings from the Lincoln Highway: America's First Coast-to-Coast Road, a new book by Brian Butko, traces the route from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, letting the geography and the history of the road tell the story of the first concerted effort to get America out of the mud. The Lincoln Highway was established in 1913 by leaders of the autmobile industry, years before the government took over roadbuilding. Greetings from the Lincoln Highway combine the history of America's premier automobile road with maps to help today's traveler's follow the sometimes-twisting route. Greetings from the Lincoln Highway includes more than 400 images, from antique postcards to modern views of diners, tourist cabins, and abandoned stretches of the road. "Many of the old pieces of road are dirt and always have been," says Butko. "Modern-day explorers love to search out those stretches for fun, but they were terrible obstacles a century ago." The author says it took him a decade to complete the research and writing. "It can be confusing to figure out where the famous concrete bridges are located, or how to find the brick monuments along the route. Even well-known locations like Donner Pass near the california-Nevada border can be difficult to locate because there are two parallel routes in that area." Butko says the route changed over time, with straightenings and bypasses bringing new roads - even new states - into the mix: "I wanted to make sure the best-known landmarks, tourist attractions, and popular food stops could be found in one place." Readers are introduced to stainless steel diners in New Jersey, long stretches of brick roadway in Ohio, beautiful concrete bridges in Iowa, and a place in Utah where the road is now part of a bombing range. "I like the old-time roadside attractions," says Butko. "Places like Fort Cody Trading Post in North Platte, Nebraska, are a throwback to when you could pick up wacky souvenirs of your trip and not spend a whole lot." Butko first book about the Lincoln Highway followed the route in Pennsylvania. It was completely updated with new info and images in 2002. Butko is also known for his books on diners and Isaly's Dairy, inventors of the Klondike ice cream bar. Greetings from the Lincoln Highway: America's First Coast-to-Coast Road, published by Stackpole Books, is available at all bookstores and online booksellers. Visit www.brianbutko.com to learn more about Brian Butko's books.
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10 FACTS ABOUT THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY 1. The Lincoln Highway was not the first route to be suggested for connecting America's east and west coasts, but it was the best-funded, best-marked, and most-publicized, helping garner support for good roads everywhere. 2. The Lincoln Highway eventually ran through 14 states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California. 3. The idea was first proposed in 1912 by auto industrialist Carl Fisher, who called his plan the Coast to Coast Rock Highway, reflective of an era before concrete ribbons were even possible. 4. The Lincoln Highway Association was established the next year. Though it was not the first of the named "trails," its success led to a proliferation of similarly named roads across the U.S. 5. The Lincoln Highway's original length was counted as 3,389 miles. It was shortened in subsequent years by straightenings and bypasses. US Route 66, established more than a decade later, was a third shorter at about 2,250 miles. 6. The Lincoln Highway enjoyed a marketing bonanza, with many products using its name: songs, a radio show, a toy and board game, tires, gas pumps, even cigars. 7. The numbered highway system we use today was established in the mid-1920s to halt the confusion caused by the hundreds of named routes that had sprouted by then. 8. The Lincoln Highway was granted permission to be marked one last time in 1928. Some 2,400 concrete posts and thousands of pole-mounted signs marked the route from coast-to-coast. Dozens of the posts remain, though only a few in their original locations. 9. After slowly fading in the shadow of numbered federal highways and then the Interstate system, interest in the Lincoln Highway was revived with the publication of Drake Hokanson's history of the road in 1988. 10. A new Lincoln Highway Association was founded in 1992. Yearly conferences and state chapters have helped document and preserve sites both famous and humble, from cafes closed long ago to bridges hidden far from today's roads. SOURCE: Greetings from the Lincoln Highway: America's First Coast-to-Coast Road by Brian Butko, published by Stackpole Books, available at all bookstores and online booksellers. Visit www.brianbutko.com to learn more about Brian Butko's books.
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- www.brianbutko.com
- © 2000-07 Brian Butko
