Roadside history museum unveiled
Sandy A. Nicolaysen
Friday, August 6, 2004 Posted: 9:26 AM EDT (1326 GMT)
STOYSTOWN, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Owning a car can't be much fun when
there's nowhere to drive.
But that was the case in 1913, when road conditions were often
unsuitable for automobiles, prompting a call for the nation's first
transcontinental highway.
So the Lincoln Highway was built, connecting New York City with San
Francisco. Motorists will soon be able to learn more about the
historic road as they drive a stretch running through Pennsylvania.
From historical markers to kitschy landmarks like a renovated
coffeepot-shaped building near Bedford, the highway will be
commemorated with 250 exhibits along a 200-mile stretch of U.S. Route
30 between Pittsburgh and Gettysburg.
Also featured are murals that detail the road's history, including a
portrait of Amanda Preuss, credited as the first woman to make the
cross-country car trip from San Francisco to New York City.
Nearly 70 exhibits will be unveiled August 16, and the rest will
follow in the next year.
"This is essentially an outdoor museum to highway history," said Kevin
Patrick, a geography professor and Lincoln Highway authority from
Indiana University of Pennsylvania. "By stretching out different
components of this, it encourages people to enjoy the route exactly
the way it should be enjoyed -- and that's by driving."
The roadside museum is run by Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor, a
Ligonier-based nonprofit group dedicated to preserving Pennsylvania's
leg of the highway.
The Lincoln Highway was the brainchild of Carl G. Fisher, an Indiana
entrepreneur who sold bicycles until the motor car craze of the early
1900s, Patrick said. In 1913, Fisher helped launch a national campaign
with other businessmen to build a $10 million coast-to-coast gravel
highway to boost the automotive industry, including Prest-O-Lite, the
automobile headlamp company he owned.
Although Fisher greatly underestimated the cost of the venture,
Congress passed federal highway legislation to make the road and
others like it a reality, Patrick said.
The public bought into Fisher's patriotic sales pitch that Americans
had a duty to build a transcontinental highway so cars could do in the
20th century what trains did in the 19th century.
"They knew that towns lived and died by whether they were on the
railroad or not, so they figured the same would be true for highways,"
Patrick said.
The highway begins in Times Square in New York City and extends
through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California.
The approximate route using current highways is U.S. Route 1 south
from New York to Philadelphia; U.S. 30 west to Granger, Wyoming;
Interstate 80 west to Wendover, Nevada; U.S. Route 50 west to I-80
near Reno, Nevada; I-80 west to Sacramento; Interstate 5 south to
Tracy, California; Interstate 580 west to Oakland, California; I-80
west to San Francisco.
The route has varied over the years. As shorter, better paved routes
were built through or around some cities along the highway, the newer
roads were incorporated into it.
Pennsylvania's Lincoln Highway experience was unique because just
after the road came into its prime in some states -- the last stretch
to be paved was in Nebraska in the 1930s -- the competing Pennsylvania
Turnpike opened in the 1940s, Patrick said. The turnpike drew traffic
from the highway and signaled its eventual decline in the Keystone
State.
Former Gov. Tom Ridge designated the heritage corridor in 1995, and
the group has used nearly $500,000 in state and federal funds for the
roadside museum initiative. Most of the exhibits sit on private
property, so land owners had to be persuaded to let the heritage group
use the land and maintain the exhibits for 10 years, said Olga
Herbert, executive director of the heritage corridor.
Thelma Yaste, 73, said she wondered at first about turning the
family's barn in Somerset County into an artist's canvas as part of
the exhibit. But Yaste and two sisters are proud of the Preuss
portrait, located near the junction of Routes 30 and 219.
"There are a lot of tourists, they go by -- you can see their luggage
on the car -- and they'll turn around and come back and take
pictures," Yaste said. "Where else can you get a fine piece of art
with history on your property? It's unreal, you know?"
Yaste's sister, Marlene Gindlesperger, said the mural, which also
features a picture of Henry Ford and an early automobile, has been
history lesson for her.
"All I knew about it before was it was a well-traveled highway. I
never liked history, but I think this is pretty neat," Gindlesperger
said.
In downtown Everett, just off Route 30 along the original highway
route, local hero Chester Karns and the automobile he pioneered, the
Karns Kar, are depicted.
"Legend has it he raced to the patent office against Henry Ford and we
know how that race turned out," Herbert said. "Chester wasn't fast
enough."
Jan Eric Orme
Sierra foothills that I am aware of. It mostly parallels Hwy 80 thru Auburn and
down the slope to the west over to the old town of Lincoln.
In Auburn it is still known as Lincoln Highway right on through town.
Jan Eric Orme
"Work like you don't need the money, love like you
have never been hurt and dance like nobody is watching!"
Dave Woodruff
"Jan Eric Orme" <jano...@aol.comnojunk> wrote in message
news:20040809002726...@mb-m29.aol.com...
Jan
You don't live too far from more of the old Lincoln Highway. They have some
markers for it in Vacaville I believe. The old road also used to run
through Fairfield, right down N. Texas St. around the Curve by Armijo High
School out W. Texas St. where it crosses under I-80 and out Rockville Rd. I
don't believe they have the markers there anymore, but it used to be
referred to as "Local 40" in the area when I was raised there. Just a bit
of trivia.
Dave W.