The Overland Tales
Chapter 11: The Lincoln Highway
Let’s get something on the table...
Route 66 is carved into the asphalt heart of America. Its iconic badge — symbolizing the innate promise of freedom central to the lure of highway culture — has been whored out by every trinket factory, t-shirt printer and repop sign maker east of the Yangtze River. Long the totem of Route 66 mythology, it has become a marker in our psyche triggering faded Ektachrome visions of an America that never really existed, but one we long to return to. I am not immune. Route 66 excites me. I love it.
But it ain’t no Lincoln Highway.
The Lincoln - fathered mostly from existing roads in the east and miles of illegitimate horse trails and wagon ruts across the west - predates Route 66 by 13 years. The Lincoln Highway was the route for early automobile adventures. Primitive cars riding on wooden tires, driven by goggled men and women donned with leather accoutrements, fired the imagination of a country that always looked west for a challenge. Going on a cross- country road trip was serious business. The Lincoln Highway gave no quarter when it opened in 1913. In some ways, it still doesn’t.
And they call Route 66 the “Mother Road?” Bullshit.
The Lincoln Highway was truly transcontinental tying Times Square, New York with Lincoln Park, San Francisco via 3,398 continuous miles. Route 66, at a paltry 2,448 miles, started in Chicago and ended in Santa Monica. Even the Union Pacific and Central Pacific, which built the first “transcontinental” railroad, really only connected Omaha and California. The Lincoln? Coast to coast, baby.
It never had a number. Didn’t need it. Still doesn’t, though it did earn a nickname: “The Main Street Across America.” All the Lincoln ever required was a modest red, white and blue marker with an “L.” Some were formal, some were homemade; painted on rocks, poles and fences. My own experiences with the Lincoln Highway began back east when I was old enough to start noticing these humble, faded guideposts.
As a Jersey boy, I found myself on state Route 27 quite a bit. This stretch of the original Lincoln regularly brought my family to one of our favorite restaurants.
The highway can still get you to that old joint, but the board of health long ago decreed that you won’t be eating anything upon your arrival. Across my home state, Pennsylvania, Ohio and bits of Illinois the original Lincoln is an old friend of mine. You have to know where to look, as many miles of the original highway are under Route 30 through these parts, while significant sections are now side roads. Finding them used to be a difficult task. If you were lucky, you’d find an old marker or a new historic Lincoln Highway sign. I always looked for hints in street names: “Old Highway Ln.” or “Lincoln St.” Today, thanks to the Lincoln Highway Association, you can give up on your own sleuthing and find your way along all the historic alignments using the map at: https://www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/map/
Out here in western Wyoming, sections of the original Lincoln are unpaved, though properly graded and maintained in a manner the pioneer motorists could only dream of. East of Evanston, the highway plays tag with the current and historic Union Pacific rights-of-way. South of Leroy, one can even turn off the original Lincoln Highway and on to the railroad’s 1869 alignment.
And if you do that, Leroy Road awaits.
Read the entire ebook version with many additional photographs
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