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The Lincoln Highway, conceived by an automotive accessories manufacturer named Carl Fisher in 1912, was hardly a highway by today's standards. It was more a web of existing roads and short stretches of new construction, all dotted with visible road markers, that finally gave motorists a single route to follow from New York to California. Before its inception, motorists, few as they were, would often have to take old wagon trails, especially in the West, and cut down wire fences along the way. Although the Lincoln Highway was barely an interstate in the modern sense, it was a massive improvement, though within a decade it was overshadowed by the fabled Route 66 and is now just a series of "faint traces." Butko's easygoing, state-by-state account is a fun amble through 14 states including West Virginia, Indiana, Iowa, Colorado and Utah, not overly nostalgic, yet indulging in remembrances of old diners and corny roadside attractions, like the Shoe House, a five-story building shaped like a work boot in Pennsylvania. Butko (Diners of Pennsylvania) peppers the narrative with quotes from early 20th-century travelogues, and the inclusion of snapshots and old postcards establishes a chatty ambience. Although readers will probably want to skip around (the descriptions of the highway in some states are dull), this is a detailed and well-illustrated travel diary. 351 color, 54 b&w photos; 15 color maps. (May)
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Book Description
The Lincoln Highway predates Route 66 by a dozen years, runs a third longer than that famed highway, and crosses the country from Atlantic to Pacific. Now the story of the first coast-to-coast route is told in this grand, eclectic history of the road.
Traversing fourteen states from Times Square in New York to Lincoln Park in California, Butko follows the highway in both space and time, mingling excerpts from the memoirs of cross-country travelers in the early days of the road with perspectives from today's voyagers and his own astute observations.
Along the way the story of the highway unfolds, from the spark of an idea in the mind of Prest-O-Lite headlight manufacturing giant Carl Fisher to the formation of an association in 1913 for getting the arduous task of road building afoot, including the resulting disputes over which cities and states the route would pass through. Stories of early adventurers--men and women who traveled the Lincoln in the 1910s and ‘20s--reveal what early motoring was really like: the good, the bad, and the muddy.
In each state you'll visit historic buildings, bridges, taverns, diners, neon movie palaces, Art Deco gas stations, ice cream stands, tourist cabins, and colorful roadside attractions. You'll also meet people from all walks of life, from every era, who have been on the road as travelers, workers, planners, commuters, vacationers, and just plain Sunday drivers enjoying the scenery. Not merely a geographical link, the Lincoln Highway connects us to the past and that part of ourselves that is always seeking the quest.
This is the trip you've been waiting for.
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