“It’s a historical building, but I guess it’s progress,” said Marv Blessing, an alumnus of Pine Village High School, in a recent interview with IndyStar. After decades of work in historic preservation, little pains me more than this continuing assertion by many that demolition is necessary for “progress.” Why have we bought into this fallacy? I ask this every time I hear it said–either in celebration or resignation, as in this case. It breaks my heart.
I went up this weekend to Pine Village in Warren County to see this wonderful gym that is slated to be torn down in March. New Deal-funded and constructed in part by the Works Progress Administration in 1940, here is a building still much loved and much used, a three-dimensional document. It was built next to the old high school, which succumbed to fire in the 1940s. That school’s replacement stands in front of the gym and is soon to be demolished as well.
The town is very small, only a little over 200 people. It’s a farming community. You can stand in the middle of the intersection of highways 26 and 55, and the edge of town is just a couple blocks away in all directions. Much of the town’s identity and heritage are tied into this building, a place where the community still comes together (but not for much longer). It was home to the tiny but mighty Pine Knots basketball team, who won the sectional in 1972–the smallest team to do so–the year before Pine Village’s high school was consolidated. Most folks in town think it’s shame to lose the building, but what can they do?
As I ran excitedly around the building trying to get some photographs of the interior through the entrance sidelights, a young man walked up and offered to unlock the door for me. Turns out he is the school custodian and like everyone I talked to in town, an alumnus. The gym was immaculate––after all, there is one more basketball game on the schedule this week. I felt a shimmer and I was back in my long-gone high school gym, also a New Deal project with a similarly designed interior. The stage was still framed with deep blue curtains emblazoned with “P V” at the center. Behind the stage off to the sides were two classrooms, one the former bandroom. The other room was filled with art supplies and projects in various stages, ready for pupils to return.
Stories vary as to why this beloved building must go, but it boils down to money. Still, many would see saving this gem, clearly eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, as a good investment. The roof is only a few years old, yet the custodian showed me the black mold on one wall of the bandroom and leaks elsewhere. I may be an outsider, but this suggests a problem that should be taken up with the contractor who installed the roof. There may be boiler issues; in the town’s quick stop gas station a woman, who also had attended the school, said there were sewer problems, although I did not run across this issue mentioned elsewhere. Why isn’t Indiana Landmarks involved in trying to find alternatives to demolition? It seems the school corporation had not mentioned tearing down the gym when plans for removing the non-historic school came out, and apparently no one thought to seek help from the organization when the plans grew to include it. And so another beautiful New Deal structure, not one that had stood abandoned for years, but a well-used building that is the beating heart of the community, disappears. It breaks my heart, too.
So last week I ran away for a day. To Michigan. Just because I needed to visit my heart’s home, the Lake. If it is only for a day I usually end up in the vicinity of South Haven and Glenn, following what once upon a time was US31, hugging the Lake as closely as possible. While I’ve long known the various city and county parks, in recent years a number of lakeside nature preserves have been set aside to protect the unique and fragile ecological wonder that is the dunes. These areas discourage any invasive activity save immersion in nature.
I have been wandering this area for over 40 years, and the changes over time have been dramatic. I watched an abandoned farm with a handsome barn south of Glenn become a golf course, then stand abandoned again–and now it is a high-end gated subdivision with huge rolling lots. Indeed, I have seen too many gated communities spring up along the Lake over the decades, making those nature preserves all the more important.
I have watched South Haven evolve from an ordinary town that happened to be on a big lake into quite the tourist mecca with hardly any downtown businesses geared toward the local populace, unless they are addicted to fudge and off-color tee shirts and overpriced doodads. With its mounds of flowers on bump-outs that make traffic on the main street difficult, South Haven is undeniably attractive, but I avoid downtown because it is wall-to-wall tourists from May through October. Once upon a time, wandering around in October, even in September, I rarely ran into crowds. No more. In my younger days, I could even wander during summer, and if it was late and a motel had too many empty units, they might give me a discount on a modest room. Those days are gone.
I got a late start and ran into construction delays that seem particularly rampant this year, so I immediately headed to the South Haven area, stopping at a township park just to greet the Lake. Oh yes, yes. Peace flooded my soul in a moment. Walking along the Lake’s edge as its waves snatched at my feet, I gave in, tore off my shoes, and splashed in the dancing water. Soon my jeans were soaked past my knees as stones jumped into my pockets.
But I had an additional mission on this trip besides connecting with the Lake. For probably 30 years I have been stopping at Dee’s Lakeshore Farm, just north of Glenn. In fall, my usual time, I lay in my supply of fresh-picked apples–at an impossibly low price–and perhaps other produce she may have available. I may pick up some odd or end at her ongoing garage sale. Dee is a delightful, feisty, and shrewd businesswoman whose energy and appearance belie her 87 years. She gives me discounts or will throw something in free. We chat about everything and nothing. I left with a bushel of apples, a hodge-podge of tomatoes, a mum plant, and the news that finally, this is her last year. I will miss her beyond measure.
I headed a few miles north to a county park I knew for some more Lake time. I scrambled down to the beach and the Lake, warm and enfolding. How it sparkled! The horizon disappeared into the sky with scarcely a visible line.
The tide was going out and I had the Lake nearly to myself. A gull approached on the possibility that I had food. Seeing none, it toddled off. I walked for awhile as again stones jumped into my pockets.
Although I had packed an overnight bag just in case, I realized it was time to return. I stopped at a preserve to gaze at the Lake from a high bluff and was delighted on the way by the antics of black squirrels, who are clearly growing their winter coats, and several frolicking blue jays.
One more stop at a township park where a path of diamonds led to the distant horizon. Beneath the bluff far below the Lake murmured farewell, the overwhelming of all my senses making it all the more difficult to leave. But always, I return. I must.
Some weeks ago I stumbled on the news that yet another building in South Bend listed in the National Register of Historic Places–this one was also a designated Local Landmark–was demolished. Someone had posted a video on a South Bend Facebook page of the destruction of the former South Bend Brewing Association taking place and it broke my heart. I had gone through a lot of trouble trying to save this building, crunching through dead pigeons and scaring up live ones on the top floor so I could reach and photograph the vat at the corner of the building–at the very top because brewing used a gravity process. A huge copper kettle was encased in the fourth floor tower that gave the structure its castle-like appearance.
In 1903 a group of mostly German, Polish, and Hungarian (then the three largest immigrant groups in South Bend) tavern owners formed the South Bend Brewing Association to manufacture and distribute beer. They built a large brick building on what was then called Michigan Avenue, later renamed Lincolnway when the Lincoln Highway was routed on it. Opened in 1905, the imposing structure housed a complete manufacturing facility. The process of brewing depended on gravity flow, and the building was a visual representation of the procedure. The chief products were Tiger Beer and Hoosier Beer. Immediately to the west, a bottling facility was built in 1910, later enlarged to accommodate the brewery’s offices.
Prohibition, effected in 1919 by the Volstead Act, forced the South Bend Brewing Association to change its line of manufacture. The renamed South Bend Beverage and Ice Association made non-alcoholic beverages (among them Hoosier Root Beer and Hoosier Sweet Cider), candy, ice cream, and in the non-food line, denatured alcohol for industrial purposes and ice. When Prohibition ended, the company resumed brewing beer for regional sales, producing around fifty thousand barrels yearly. After World War II business declined, at least in part because of a hefty federal excise tax on each barrel brewed that placed smaller breweries at a disadvantage. While the firm continued its ice manufacturing section, Polar Ice and Fuel, for a few additional years, the brewery closed in November 1950. Over time, various businesses used portions of the building: the White Way Glass Company in the 1950s; the I.W. Lower Company (paints) in the 1960s; a Harley-Davidson service and showroom facility in the 1970s and early 1980s. At the time I wrote the nomination in early 1999, a resale shop occupied the added-on storefront, and a glass manufacturer, Indiana Glass Company, used much of the first floor level. The rest was vacant. And now it’s gone.
I’m beginning to take this personally! South Bend’s other brewery, for which I also wrote the National Register nomination, is gone now, too, and its roots were much older with buildings to prove it. The multi-structure complex had started out as the family-run Muessel Brewery in 1852, and a couple of the buildings dated to the 1860s. German-born Christopher Muessel arrived in South Bend about 1852. His business soon outgrew its original location, so in 1865 Muessel purchased just over 136 acres of land northwest of town (west of what became Portage Avenue) and erected a larger complex of brick structures. His sons all assisted their father in the business; finally in 1893 the Muessel Brewing Company was incorporated, with patriarch Christopher Muessel as president. He died the following year at the age of 82, and his son Edward succeeded him, with other brothers and their sons all officers of the company. They brewed Standard and Bavarian beers and sold it in barrels to taverns; they bottled Arzburg Export for home consumption. Expansion of the plant followed incorporation, including a new bottling house; an attractive new brick office building was constructed right after the turn of the century that soon sat in the shadow of a mammoth brewing building to the west, constructed in 1911. It was in that particular building that I nearly got killed in my efforts to document it; a wall on one side had been knocked down in order to salvage the huge copper vats on the third floor level, leaving massive round openings in the floor and the interior open to the weather. It was winter and the floors were a veritable skating rink. I nearly slid into the black void where once a vat had been.
During Prohibition, Muessel briefly attempted to keep going by producing non-alcoholic beverages but was forced to close about 1922. Before the plant reopened after the repeal of Prohibition, the company enlarged the facilities and constructed a new bottling plant east of the office building. But the Muessel Brewing Company faltered, and following an announcement to their stockholders in 1936, they reorganized and became a significant part of Drewry’s, Limited, a Canadian company that had just begun distribution in the United States. Drewry’s was Canada’s first brewing company, started in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1877. Its newly acquired South Bend plant became its first in the United States, headquarters for nationwide distribution as well as manufacture. The company indicated that major ingredients used in this plant were to be purchased mostly in the United States, all news which surely boded well for the region gripped by the Great Depression. Drewry’s also announced that the plant would be completely unionized; there was “a spirit of good fellowship and cooperation in South Bend.” Since this was to be the center for nationwide distribution, the plant was yet further remodeled and enlarged, adding more truck terminals and case storage facilities as needs required. Among the Drewry’s brands (besides Drewry’s itself) produced were Pfeiffer, Schmitt, and Old Dutch. Drewry’s later merged with Associated Brewing Company out of Detroit, but continued to keep its own identity and its ties with South Bend.
But in 1972, Associated sold Drewry’s to the G. Heileman Brewing Company of LaCrosse, Wisconsin. The new owner chose to phase out the South Bend plant, and brewing ceased in the fall of that year. After 120 years, the city no longer had a local brewery. There were efforts to maintain local distributorship of Drewry’s beer, but not unexpectedly, there was a great deal of local backlash against the product. A few years after the brewery closed, a new owner acquired the site and named it “Omniplex,” a startup facility for small businesses. At the time of my work on the National Register nomination, the complex was less than half occupied with various enterprises. Evidently, no one cared when the complex was listed; indeed, it seemed to be largely unknown, even though the work was commissioned by the city’s Historic Preservation Commission! In 2017, the majority of the complex was demolished to great fanfare; those that remain are scheduled to be torn down this fall, again, sadly, a matter of celebration to the neighborhood.
Now only one of the triumvirate of local breweries in South Bend-Mishawaka remains standing (abandoned), but for how long? This one also had origins in the 1850s, in a small operation begun in Mishawaka by a man named Wagner. Adolph Kamm, along with some partners, purchased the brewery in 1870; in the 1880s, Kamm’s brother-in-law Nicholas Schellinger became a partner and it was incorporated as Kamm & Schellinger Brewing Company. It closed in 1951 but had a second life, opening in 1968 as a festival marketplace called the 100 Center. That languished in the 1980s. Today this mostly intact brewery complex of several substantial brick structures along the St. Joseph River is greatly endangered, despite its listing in the National Register–that will not save it! But Indiana Landmarks placed it on its Ten Most Endangered List, which has a really good track record of saving historic buildings as the bulldozers approach. There is hope. But the lesson here is that placing historic buildings in the National Register is not enough. We must keep watch and keep working!
Some 34 years ago I traveled to the National Archives in Washington D.C. to go through Indiana’s WPA records. Perhaps the last WPA project was to compile the project records, each of which had an identifying index card, onto microfilm. What a boring, endless job that must have been! The cards themselves disappeared; all we had was the microfilm, catalogued by year. Within each year, projects were listed alphabetically by county, then location within each county. So at the end of several grueling days, I had eight separate handwritten lists (1935-1942) that later I conflated into one, my first effort using a computer, which was a required skill to enter the graduate school to which I had just been accepted.
That list has been a useful tool all these years since, but I soon discovered it was not complete, and so if a suspected WPA project is not on it, that does not mean it is not WPA, only that I need to search harder for another source if the building itself does not yield clues. And, of course, the list tells what was there in 1942, not today. Needless to say, the percentage of those structures still extant continues to dwindle.
Recently learning of a WPA shelter that had been rehabbed down in Corydon, Indiana’s first state capital, I perused the list to see what else might be in Harrison County that I had not yet checked. (The shelter in question was not mentioned on the list.) There were a number of other structures that I had never gotten down to verify; several seemed unlikely survivors (schools, gyms) but certainly worth seeking.
On the way down to the bottom of the state I passed through Seymour, in which stands the WPA-built Shields Memorial Gym that is currently on the 10 Most Endangered List compiled by Indiana Landmarks, our statewide preservation organization. This building, too, is not on my list compiled from the National Archives, but I have verified its WPA pedigree through other sources. I was not prepared to find such a magnificent basketball palace (this is Indiana, after all), once home to the proud Seymour Owls with seating for 3500(!) in such a distressed state. It stands forlorn and desecrated, the only structure in a grassy block in a residential area that is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The 1910 school it once adjoined is long gone.
Reaching the line of counties bordering the Ohio River, I passed through Floyds Knobs (Floyd County) in search of the WPA-built clubhouse for Valley View Golf Course.
The building is actually still there, but scarcely recognizable unless you’ve seen a lot of New Deal buildings. It’s been altered and expanded, but the core of it is the original. Beyond that, the town park in Georgetown had nothing left of its WPA improvements, save a concrete slab that likely was the base of the original shelter, since replaced by one with a smaller footprint.
On to Harrison County, where much to my delight I found the 1936 community center in Crandall still intact and clearly still used for its original purpose. Vinyl siding hides the original clapboard, but the little building reflects that vaguely Williamsburg influence so popular when it was built.
A few miles farther on I entered Corydon, which contains one of the oddest WPA projects, that of a sturdy memorial shelter for the creosoted stump of Indiana’s revered Constitution Elm that had died the previous decade. Under its sheltering leaves in a sweltering summer, Indiana’s first state constitution was created in 1816. The sandstone used for the memorial shelter was quarried in the nearby Harrison State Forest (now Harrison-Crawford and O’Bannon Woods State Park) by members of CCC Company 517. WPA workers completed the memorial in 1937, with the bronze plaque placed upon it in January 1938.
I had come to Corydon specifically to check out a shelterhouse attributed to the WPA that, again, was not on the list. It was located in a recently revived park and was built of sandstone similar to that of the Constitution Elm memorial. It indeed was very likely a New Deal structure but I am still seeking documentation, although there is a recently placed sign on the property indicating it was built by the WPA in 1937 in what was then a recreation area serving the high school. I was disappointed to see the inappropriate metal roof and frou-frou shutters and doors. Ironically, the original stone riprap along the banks of the creek, almost certainly WPA work, was still in place and blessedly authentic.
The WPA built several schools and gyms all over Harrison County, but I held out little hope, since these sorts of buildings tend to have a poor survival rate. A gymnasium in Mauckport on the Ohio River is gone–as indeed, is Mauckport for the most part. (It never truly recovered from the great flood of 1937.)
From there I passed through tiny Laconia and noted a suspicious-looking former school–an unexpected find–that was beautifully rehabbed into a community center and apartments for the hamlet. I later discovered a secondary source that identified it as WPA, built as a replacement for a previous school that had burned in 1932, but while I have not yet confirmed this absolutely as New Deal, it almost certainly is.
Upon reaching the little town of Elizabeth, my last stop, I was thrilled to see the former WPA school and gym, completed in 1939, was still serving the area well, now containing a branch of the Harrison County Public Library and a well used community center.
The gymnasium is centered in the building with former classrooms on each side. The gym has changed little since it was built; indeed, I spoke with a woman who had attended the school some decades before who confirmed that it appeared just as it was when she went there.
So much New Deal activity in one county! (And I did not even mention the considerable CCC activity in the state forest, today much of which is O’Bannon Woods State Park!)
Sometimes I just have to run off. And so, even though I had done little preparation, I headed out to hit the Lincoln Highway in Illinois. Actually, full disclosure, my original plan was to do Illinois and Iowa, but fate had other plans. I was late starting out. Originally I was going to begin at Plymouth, Indiana, and take the second iteration of the road westward. But I thought that instead I had better take I-65 so I could get up there faster. I hit endless construction and delays, finally reaching the 1913 Lincoln Highway east of Merrillville, which I had not driven in some years. Here it is called 73rd Street, and the 2-lane was pleasant enough, with little traffic. The rural-ish road leads through the original downtown of Merrillville when it was just a small town, not the behemoth of sprawl to the south that most people think of when they hear the name.
Eventually it makes its way through older parts of Schererville to US30, preparing for its jump from Dyer across the stateline. 30 is six crowded lanes wide here, hardly conducive enjoying the Lincoln Highway scenery, what little is left. Past the junction with US41, where Teibels, a long-lived restaurant, still appears to be thriving, is an Ideal Mile, which the rest of road has caught up with and surpassed. There is also the monument to Henry Joy, but ironically not an inch of space for even one car to stop to appreciate it.
I crossed the border, and soon after US30 turned northward, but the Sauk Trail, the original Lincoln Highway route, continued westward. Ah yes, where the gangsters dumped the bodies (my grandparents lived on Chicago’s southside early on and told me this!) The wetlands are still there–nice to see! No menacing gangster ghosts, at least in daylight. Arrived at Illinois Highway 1 in south Chicago Heights, and for a short time was on the Dixie Highway (or I should say one of the Dixie Highways–it had many fingers) as well as the Lincoln. Turned west with the Lincoln and soon was on six lanes through massive commercial sprawl–very disheartening. Just nothing left of the old road to see, all a blur of wide lanes and endless chains. New Lenox is an interesting old railroad town, though, where I noted one of the many murals celebrating the highway that dot the route.
Reached Joliet, crowded with awful traffic, and noted some interesting old buildings that there was no hope of appreciating. Did cross a very cool iron drawbridge built in the 1920s, but my enjoyment of it was marred with construction. After that, with few exceptions, nothing but suburbs and 4-6 lanes.
When I reached Plainfield I drove a bit of the fabled old Route 66. Years ago when I lived in Chicago and worked in radio, a good friend of mine, artist Mary Selfridge, lived in Plainfield. She was just starting out and later rose to some notable heights. Back then, long ago, Plainfield was just a nice small town. Its beautiful commercial district is still largely intact and very upscale now. Gone the agricultural center, where perhaps the wealthier farmers lived after they retired. Now it’s boutiques and coffee shops. But this is a way we save historic downtowns these days. With so much sprawl beyond, it took forever to leave Plainfield, ultimately on the historic route, now Illinois 126. Enroute to Aurora and virtually no open country, immensely unsatisfactory. Am I whining? Well, as I work in historic preservation, all this ungodly sprawl is anathema to me. On my right, the ugliest sort of new houses had just mushroomed in the past year; on my left the land had been farmed only the year before, but this year, who knows? Please, do not tell me there’s a housing shortage.
Somehow back on 30 with the Lincoln Highway, Passed a few old motels and cabins whose future appeared in doubt and at last reached Aurora, population now over 200,000! Ay! Not the Aurora I once vaguely knew in my younger years.
Marked was a Lincoln Highway shelter from the early days of autocamping, now at the edge of a golf course. In opposite corners were fireplace ovens. Stopped for a bit to read the signage placed there. And in North Aurora stopped for a milkshake at Bruno’s, highly recommended! I needed that.
I followed northward the Fox River Valley through Batavia and on to Geneva, past the most magnificent 19th and early 20th century mansions surrounded with large estates. This has not changed much; I was through here many years ago. My mother’s generation-older cousin, whom I called “Aunt,” had married well and lived in St. Charles, the next town north up the river. I remember we visited her on my 12th birthday and she treated me to ice cream, whatever flavor I wanted, at a little shop in Geneva. (I chose pistachio, which then was rather exotic.) I turned westward through the lovely downtown of Geneva. Lovely, but crowded, and the afternoon was wearing on.
At last, open roads! Endless farms, small agricultural towns at intervals along the road like beads on a chain. The REAL Lincoln Highway. The hour was late but the threatening clouds had mostly given way, so I felt hopeful of making the Mississippi by dark, my new goal. Reached DeKalb, a city worth exploring more. Decades ago, in my afore-mentioned radio days, I had made a public appearance at a dance at Northern Illinois University here. Likely I had driven I-80 to get here; of course, I did not recognize anything, but did pass the campus and spotted another Lincoln Highway mural.
The road soothed me; this was much more like it! Eventually I reached Rochelle, where I had been before a couple of times.
Another mural, and of course the iconic gas station, happily marking a turn of the route back westward.
Just a little out of town is a roadside park–probably built by the New Deal in the 1930s, as so many were–at a place where another road meets the highway at an angle. What a nice old road, very rural, paved with old concrete that’s doing just fine, thank you. I noted daffodils blooming in several yards, while back in Indy ours are all done. Waves of spring. About here is where I started seriously thinking about making the Mississippi River my goal and heading back next day to catch what I missed going out. (And plan for Iowa another time.) Spend more good road time–and find a route back to Indy far away from the greater-greater Chicago mess.
Continued on through the tiny town of Ashton, struggling a bit to keep to the route here, when I turned onto the aptly named Track Road, which runs straight and true along the railroad and was the Lincoln Highway’s original route. It was gravel still, and I was enchanted. In my mind my Ford Ranger morphed into a Model T. The train running alongside carried some types of cars a T wouldn’t have recognized–and no doubt the crop fields were surrounded by fencing 100 years ago, but–close enough!
Soon arrived at Franklin Grove, with the national headquarters of the Lincoln Highway housed in–what else–the Lincoln Building, which actually was constructed by a distant cousin of our revered Abraham. It was closed, unfortunately, as was the Lincoln Way Cafe, which appeared definitely to be my kind of place. Oh well, I thought. I will catch these on the way back tomorrow.
Onward through Dixon, through its famous Victory Arch. These arches built on the main drag were not uncommon in small towns in the early 20th century (whether to commemorate victory in the World War or simply to boost the town), but few survive. Dixon has made a decision to keep its iconic structure, which is now in its third or fourth iteration. Dixon boasts some wonderful buildings downtown, but in truth, I had simply had it with cities. Besides, the sun was descending.
Onward to Sterling, another city and worse, lots of sprawlmalls. Westward Ho!
It was barely still daylight but Iowa was within reach. The route here was a little confusing and I turned onto 136, but before I got into Fulton proper I THOUGHT I saw a sign that the Lincoln Highway turned south and ended up crossing the US30 bridge directly into Clinton.
Tomorrow was another day! Just at dark I found the Timber Motel, right on the Lincoln Highway, with an incredibly spacious, clean, and reasonable room. The only typical amenity missing was coffee, but I wasn’t complaining. I later learned that this motel is a favorite of Lincoln Highway scholar Russell Rein.
In the morning I headed back into downtown Clinton, which has a lot of great buildings that are largely empty, unfortunately.
I was paralleling the river northward when I came to the huge historic courthouse, and shortly after, the 136 bridge, which is a few blocks south of where the original Lincoln Highway bridge was. Both bridges across the river (US30 and 136) rise up from the bank toward the supports; both are two-lane. Let’s just say I was glad there wasn’t much traffic at either crossing.
I was instantly attracted to Fulton, which is very proud of its Dutch heritage, featuring whimsical sculpture in several places and an honest-to-goodness Dutch-built windmill standing right where the approach to the old Lincoln Highway bridge had been.
Walked a bit on top of the levee along the mighty Mississippi, which is more narrow here than one might expect and thus a good place for a ferry and to locate a town, and that is its origin story.
The town was clean and attractive, and I spotted a very nice bakery and restaurant–Krumpets–perfect for breakfast. And oh it was! As I entered, the 1940s tune “Ruby” was playing, one of my mother’s favorites. (Yes, she’s have liked this place, too.) I wandered about for a bit then returned to the Lincoln Highway and took a few minutes to check out a hamlet, Union Grove, that was bypassed by the construction of a bridge over railroad tracks. Passed through Morrison, which I barely remembered from the night before, and much bigger than it appeared because the Lincoln Highway runs a block north of the extensive and very historic downtown. Arrayed on a bluff above the highway itself are mansions galore, each more fabulous than the last, in an assortment of 19th and early 20th century styles. This town had some money, and judging by the excellent condition of the historic downtown, still does. Having just spent quite a lot of time in Fulton, I left exploring Morrison for another time. Not far eastward was a former roadside park now abandoned and fenced off.
My disregard for cities had not abated when I reached Sterling, but I did look around a little and discovered an odd thing: what had once been quite a lovely park on an island in Rock River, a great picnic spot (at least at one time) and numerous abandoned buildings. I wonder why this lovely place, I believe called Lawrence Park, is not kept up? Onward on the original Lincoln Highway route, Palmyra Road, which I’d missed going west. Near Prairieville was the Midway Drive-in movie theater, still in use. (Midway between Sterling and Dixon, I assume.)
Always great to see those still going. I was enchanted at a whimsical herd of Holsteins fashioned from old gas tanks and stopped at the business, Palmyra Greenhouse, for a souvenir plant. (It’s doing fine.)
Back through Dixon, under the arch. Only many miles later did I realize I’d forgotten to seek out the famous Lincoln statue there.
I reached Franklin Grove, eager to visit the national headquarters, to discover it was open only on weekends. Well dang! That’s when I try to avoid traveling. I did stick my head into the Lincoln Way Cafe, but was still so stuffed from the fabulous breakfast in Fulton that I simply couldn’t eat anything.
Back along the Track Road, which delightd me so, to Ashton and on to Rochelle. There I went south a couple of blocks to see Railroad Park, where two main lines cross in an X. There was signage explaining the history, a shelter–all in all an attractive place. I pondered what next to do; the farther east I traveled, the fewer viable options heading south I had: I simply could not face all that Chicago sprawl again. I elected to take the interstate south from Rochelle, but what a miserable experience, sucking away all my Lincoln Highway joy! Eventually I got off and took Illinois 116 eastward, and it was heavenly, running straight and true through the former prairies on old over-engineered concrete, endless fields and farms, even crossing Route 66 at Pontiac. Everything spoke to me. I reached US52 and took it almost all the way home. How I love old roads, three-dimensional historical documents spinning out their stories.
My last day on the road, like the three previous, dawned beautifully sunny and pleasant.
I was ready to take on the Alleghenies! This time in daylight! I headed west back to Schellsburg, where I passed the grocery that had saved me from hunger my first night out.
Little had I realized that I passed that night Little Boy Blue (or the Pied Piper, depending on what source you believe), which marked the entrance to the long-defunct Storyland, a 1950s roadside attraction that closed in the 1980s. Evidently many of its features are still there, hidden back in the woods, but it is private property. And, to reduce my temptation further, I was still nearly 500 miles from home.
But I did try to get on some of the original alignments where possible. This one, west of Schellsburg, was lovely in the morning sun.
And it passed an 1806 log church that is listed in the National Register and evidently still used, at least occasionally.
This fairly short stretch of the road was especially scenic with a quite a lot of roadside attractions, past and still present.
Apparently I somehow passed the overlook where the long gone and much mourned Grand View Ship Hotel once stood. It is not commemoratively marked, but I recalled a sign indicating an overlook at something over 2900 feet. That must have been it. I was too busy careening up and the mountains to go back, flying past runaway truck ramps and signs warning them to use lower gears. That caution applies equally to baby pickup trucks, too. The sights I missed in the dark a few days before now were before me, and I had fleeting thoughts of how fortunate it was that I hadn’t gone tumbling down a mountainside in certain spots. In the dark I had certainly adhered to the posted 35mph limit, and I didn’t run too far above it in daylight. I caught some of roadside artifacts the books mention: a bison farm, abandoned tourist cabins, derelict buildings that once might have been inns–a glorious morning! The stretch between Jennerstown and Laughlintown was particularly wild and woolly–and spectacular.
Then I hit the sprawl stretch northeast of Pittsburgh, which is singularly unlovely and boring with chain names one can see anywhere in the country. I did spot a nice stretch of the original road about to the left and I followed it for a bit, but as with so many of these, it was insufficiently marked and I was not certain where I would end up. I made my way back, which afforded me the opportunity to cross the later Lincoln Highway route across the massive George Westinghouse bridge, constructed in 1932 (mentioned in chapter one of this blog series).
I would have thought I was crossing one of Pittsburgh’s three rivers, but no, it was Turtle Creek, far down in a broad valley where the huge Westinghouse factory complex, begun in the 1890s, once sprawled. Some of the buildings survive and at least some of them are used for manufacturing.
I swung around Pittsburgh, realizing from my first day’s experience that I had not the time to try to follow the old route through nor to pick up the original iteration that skips West Virginia entirely.
But I picked up the second iteration on the other side of Pittsburgh via the Steubenville Pike, and this time enjoyed the few bits of roadside artifacts to be seen without following a poky box truck. An occasional flying leaf skittered across the road or smacked into my windshield, adding to the joyful feel of it.
Seeing the sign for the Homer Laughlin factory, I decided to diverge south from route just a little to see it. (And besides, the original Ohio River crossing had been farther south, so I wanted at least to see where it was.) The town of Newell, where Homer Laughlin is located, once had many pottery factories, but for the most part only vacant lots and crumbling ruins remain, not dissimilar from those of the auto-related industries in Indiana. I made my way back north to Chester where the bridge is and stopped at the iconic World’s Largest Teapot, moved from its original location farther south to where it can be seen from the approach to the bridge on US30. Starting life as a root beer stand, in 1938 the barrel-shaped structure was moved to a spot on the recently reconfigured Lincoln Highway and remodeled into a giant teapot in homage to the local pottery industries. The owner had a china shop behind it and sold refreshments and souvenirs from the Teapot. Eventually it languished and suffered multiple owners, but the town of Chester eventually received it, and local groups moved the Teapot to its current location and refurbished it. (It is, by the way, smaller than the giant coffee pot about 150 miles east on the Lincoln Highway.)
The area where the bridge approach is now had been a popular amusement park called Rock Springs, built in 1897. Like most of these from the trolley park era, it was fading by the 1960s, conveniently so, for the builders of the new bridge wanted the land. Still, its loss is much mourned even today, and souvenirs from Rock Springs are highly prized. A commemorative marker notes the site. Had I my druthers, I would probably have spent a day just around here on both sides of the river, including a revisit to the ceramics museum.
I crossed the bridge into East Liverpool and tried to follow some of the old route through there, stumbling onto the largest Carnegie Library I had ever seen. (I come from Indiana, which boasts the greatest number of such libraries built in the country, some 164. I have seen nearly all the extant ones.)
I somehow missed the old route out of town into rural Ohio, but I did stop in the beautiful Riverview Cemetery that overlooks the Ohio Valley and where Henry Ostermann, a name known to Lincoln Highway aficionados, is buried. He was the Lincoln Highway Association’s Field Secretary and among its most effective promoters. Ironically, Ostermann was killed in Iowa while merrily speeding on his road.
Eventually finding the Lincoln Highway again, I returned to Lisbon and another look at the Steel Trolley Diner. Famished by this time, I still hoped for a diner–one that was open, that is–or a small town cafe. West out of Hanoverton I spotted a tired little cafe called the Avalon Family Restaurant.
It felt a bit like an “Easy Rider” moment when I walked in–there were only four customers, clearly regulars, sitting at a table, chatting with the owner and the waitress and eying me curiously, but the food was good.
I headed into the clouding sun and Minerva, where a roadside cow advertises a regional dairy of the same name, whose storage tanks are painted in black and white like Holsteins.
By the time I approached Canton it was rush hour and I elected to take the US30 bypass, since I had gone through it on the way east. I skipped over Massillon, but slipped through Dalton.
I skipped my beloved Wooster too, but hopped on the old road into Hayesville and Mifflin. The sky was darkening very fast and some sprinkles hit my windshield.
I gave up all hope of doing any more Lincoln Highway this trip and headed home through the deluge.
What have I kept from this adventure? Well, my one souvenir was this mug from Lincoln Motor Court, the purchase of which went toward keeping that charming and cozy relic maintained. No, it was not everything I had hoped; there was too much congestion in the larger towns and the townships close to metropolises like Philadelphia. The joy tended to be strained there. But the memories of roller coastering through the Alleghenies and curving foothills in Ohio, the charming small towns, the roadside relics, will linger forever. The Road is the Way, and I can still feel it.
I first learned of Collier Lodge, originally built deep in the Kankakee Marsh along the river of that name, back in the 1990s at a historic preservation conference in South Bend. A fellow from Porter County gave a presentation about the significance of this battered structure that once hosted the likes of Teddy Roosevelt and author Lew Wallace. I recall talking to him about writing a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, but he said they would be handling that themselves. Great!
A few years later I was in the general vicinity and drove over to take a peek. The surrounding ground had been cleaned out a good bit, the building painted and presumably stabilized–some funding had been obtained for the purpose–and hopeful signage erected on and in front of the building about restoring the lodge. All right then! Naturally, I long assumed that it had happened. Even folks who were working at Indiana Landmarks (the statewide non-profit preservation organization) at the time, helping in the early stages, assumed it had ultimately been restored. I suppose it’s just that this place is so out of the way. I had been intending for years to get back there to see it (in its gloriously restored state, I had thought) and only managed to hurry up there last week when I learned of its imminent demolition.
This site is really important historically. The sloggy marsh immediately south of the building is actually the original main channel of the river, before it was dredged and straightened and turned into essentially a canal in the decade before World War I. Here had been one of the only places travelers could get through the swamp relatively easily. The vast Kankakee Marsh was formidable indeed, later becoming known as the “Everglades of the North.” Its presence was why Indiana’s first border-to-border “highway” in the 1830s, the Michigan Road, took a severe northeast jog from Logansport up to South Bend then west over to Michigan City. But some preferred the more direct route through the swamps, and here there was a ford, known, in a variety of spellings, as Potawatomi Ford, indicative of the fact that there were certainly native Americans in the region. The first settler of European ancestry here seems to have been George Eaton, who operated a ferry for several years, interrupted only briefly by the construction of a bridge, which soon burned. After Eaton’s death in 1851, his widow continued running the ferry until her death six years later. The ferry continued until one Enos Baum built a more substantial toll bridge at the site of the ford, giving the local community its name of Baum’s Bridge that continues to this day. (It’s on Indiana maps.) The Kankakee Marsh, however, was a wild and difficult place to live, although a number of people fed their families and even made a good living from the fruits of fishing, hunting, and trapping, perhaps with a small subsistence farm on the side. The quantities of fish and game are what began to draw wealthy sportsmen (indeed, only men at first) to come play pioneer and spend a week or much longer camping and hunting. The area was so vast and rich, there seemed little danger of the attractions running out. Soon any number of clubhouses appeared, constructed by sportsmen’s groups from as far away as Pittsburgh. Many of them clustered about Baum’s Bridge. Some individuals built private lodges; Lew Wallace lived for weeks at a time on a houseboat anchored near the bridge. In the 1890s Elwood and Flora Collier built a large house above the river to house themselves and their three children, intending to establish some sort of business there. Mr. Baum built a houseboat to take his family to the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1903 (and made it), then used it for an excursion boat venture, which failed because the river’s depth was unpredictable. Undaunted, the family remodeled their house into an inn and named it Collier Lodge. Upstairs were accommodations, while the first floor contained a restaurant and store that catered to hunters and the growing number of tourists. The chicken and fish dinners on Sundays were legendary, enjoyed by locals as well as visitors.
In the eyes of developers, all that good land under the waters of the great swamp taking up parts of six counties should not go to waste, and so in the decade leading up to World War I, the area was ditched and drained and the river straightened. The game was soon gone, scattered to the four winds or killed off. So ended an era, and over time, all the clubhouses and lodges disappeared–all but one, though it stood abandoned for decades.
How wonderful that Collier Lodge was rediscovered! It could be a wonderful meeting place, retreat, with a small museum, perhaps–and this just as early efforts to restore part of the Great Kankakee Marsh were beginning. The property was purchased and the newly formed (2001) Kankakee Valley Historical Society took ownership. I regularly heard of the annual Aukiki River Festival held in summer as a fun and informative event, intended to raise awareness and funds. The archaeology department of Notre Dame conducted a dig the following year, expecting to find artifacts from the hunting lodge days, perhaps some pioneer relics, and maybe some native American remnants if they were lucky. Little did they realize how rich and deeply layered the site would prove to be. The finds ranged from buttons and camping items from the late 19th century to projectile points and other stone tools from the Early Archaic period (ca.9000 BCE)! Annual digs have continued into the present, with another scheduled for this summer. Artifacts from several successive native cultures, the remains of a pioneer cabin, and much more have been excavated and catalogued, adding a wealth of information on several thousand years of human activity in the Great Kankakee Marsh. So exciting! And yet, the largest artifact of all, the Collier Lodge–the very reason all this research began, the last extant building of an important era of history–was put aside until it was deemed too far gone to save. (In my experience, it probably still could be saved, but the expense is so much greater now.) Now it seems there is a plan to build a replica in another location. The actual building would have been grandfathered in, in place, even though it is on a flood plain.
A replica, IF it ever happens, is meaningless on a different site. Preservation gone wrong. As a local woman who came by as I was photographing the lodge said, “It’s a shame.”
As it grew light I was eager to leave the charmless motel outside of Trenton, with its broken security lock and lack of any coffee anywhere. Having determined the first day of this adventure that I could not make New York nor much of New Jersey in the allotted time, I was now heading back, hoping to catch most of what I had missed eastbound in the dark. The weather continued fine and I poked about Trenton for a bit, bumping into the William Trent House, built in 1719–yes, how the town got its name–while trying to make my way across the Delaware River on the right bridge into Pennsylvania. This proved difficult. I saw the famous “Trenton Makes – The World Takes” bridge but could not figure out how to get on it and back on the Lincoln Highway. I had found it in Trenton but lost it crossing the Delaware (where is General Washington when you need him?)
Some of the problem was that I was completely unfamiliar with the territory, and I was trying find something that, for the most part, barely exists–especially in urban areas. There are clues, yes, but no flashing signs proclaiming “Lincoln Highway this way” (and I wouldn’t want there to be, but subtle signage might be nice). I’m good with maps but they were all inadequate, and I could not follow the Association’s online map while driving. Indeed, having a navigator would have been helpful, but this was a solo trip. In truth the Lincoln Highway experience is nearly impossible in certain built-up regions, even for those adventurers who are capable of seeing the ghosts of the past.
Highway 1 these days northeast of Philadelphia is an expressway running through miles of wetland, or so it appeared. Apparently I was not far from Levittown, the second of the fabled post-World War II suburbs of that name. I tried several times to get off the expressway and get onto the old highway that I was more or less paralleling, but I always instead found myself in little bits of upscale newer suburbia nestled on higher ground. Although often accused of “having a map in [my] head,” I’m afraid my geography was a little hazy there. Maybe I had some vague notion that Philadelphia was on the coast–I suppose because of the Navy Yard where my father’s ship, the USS Dayton, was built during the War–but of course New Jersey is in the way. (The shipyard, what’s left of it, is on the Delaware River.) But after crossing into Pennsylvania nearly all I could see for many miles was that wetland–or flood plain plus tidewater? I appreciate General Washington’s feat even more.
Eventually I did get back on the Lincoln Highway as I approached Philadelphia proper on US 1/Roosevelt Boulevard. The architecture grew interesting as I got deeper into the city. The Lincoln Highway books mentioned a few surviving landmarks from the early days, but traffic on Broad Street was really too hectic to take note of any. Because of the traffic and construction and one-way streets I missed even glimpses of any of the historic sites I had briefly visited here decades ago, although I did make a westward turn at the gargantuan City Hall. Completed in 1901, it is the largest city hall in the country and at the top boasts a huge statue of William Penn by Alexander Calder.
The city was much different from my 30-year-old memory. I finally, with a little help, found Lancaster Avenue–imagine where that heads–which is Lincoln Highway heading out of the center city. (When I stopped to ask where Lancaster Avenue was, people persisted in asking “where are you going?” when, of course, it was the way that I was seeking.) I was delighted to see that there were lines above and tracks for electric trolleys, which I’d not seen anywhere for years. Some of the neighborhoods I passed through seemed dreadfully poor, dotted with wonderful 19th century buildings in terrible shape.
These gave way to tree-filled suburbs in full autumnal splendor and names of storied institutions come to life: Bryn Mawr and Villanova, whose buildings resembled those of Notre Dame that I know so well. Both Catholic universities, they were founded the same year, 1842. I was famished by this time and desperate for a diner when one appeared in Wayne. Minella’s turned out to be a newer diner but it had replaced an older one on the same site. Its menu rivaled War and Peace in length but the place felt right enough, although quite large.
My hunger satisfied I hit the road once again and for some miles it was lovely, but the closer I got to Lancaster the more congested it became.
Downingtown, Coatesville, and towns far smaller looked worth exploring but the traffic was discouraging. I did pass intriguing roadside attractions, many with a “Dutch” theme, and several more diners, many closed but some open.
But I stopped at none, for I was feeling road stress again with constant traffic. I reached the bypass around Lancaster and took it all the way to York. November days are short, and anyway, I had been on the old route through both towns eastbound only two days before.
I had arranged to stop and see a Facebook friend–what a world!–who lives in York and has essentially a private museum of old radio/TV/movie stuff. It’s a pretty spectacular collection and it was tough to leave both her and the cool things to see, but once again, miles to go before I could sleep.
It was dark, and knowing what hairpins and spirals lurked in the mountains west beyond York, I elected to head north to the Pennsylvania Turnpike (the expressway that put the Lincoln Highway out of business) and exit at Bedford, only a few miles from the Lincoln Motor Court where I would spend the night again. The turnpike was farther north than I thought and there was much construction, especially around the many tunnel entrances.
Exhausted, I got off at Bedford and, despite my having wandered around the town quite a bit only two days before, was completely lost. And there is nothing like dark in the mountains. (Well, all right, yes, I have been deep inside caves.) I finally spotted something I recognized and got back on track, which is to say, the Lincoln Highway, which brought me back to the Lincoln Motor Court. A different cabin this time, but a bed just as welcome and comfy. Ahh. Tomorrow was another day.
I awoke from a delightfully cozy sleep at the Lincoln Motor Court, about five miles east of Schellsburg, ready to resume. Again the day was clear and sunny. I walked around the charming court and gazed back westward at the mountains I had come through. Across the road was an abandoned former inn, an early 20th century hotel built on foundations more than a hundred years older.
I headed east into Bedford, only a few miles beyond. The town, laid out in 1766, was so charming I had to walk around for a bit and admire its 18th and early 19th century buildings–and inquire the whereabouts of the Coffee Pot, which it turned out I had passed coming in! (There was a well-leafed tree in the way, and I hadn’t been looking for it.)
This wonderful building, no longer in use but a three-dimensional historical document of the Lincoln Highway’s heyday, was moved from its original location and refurbished with the help of the Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor. I then stopped at an amazingly intact 1933 filling station, gloriously art deco-styled in polychrome terra cotta, still owned by the same family. Mrs. Dunkle herself presided within.
Onward into the mountains once again, after going through Everett, which boasts a New Deal-era post office containing an unusual sculptural mural, “Signing of the Constitution,” by Hazel Clere.
A much-altered art deco theater barely survives, no longer showing movies, alas. Faded signs suggest there had been some effort to save it. On the east edge of town is The Igloo drive-in, closed for the season, but apparently still in business. Sorry to have missed it, even though it cannot seem to make up its mind whether to be an igloo or a giant sundae, with its splash of chocolate sauce and cherry on top.
I kept to the old Lincoln Highway then eased onto its reunion with current US30; there has been much alteration coming down to and around a plethora of motels and gas stations, which I later realized was the hamlet of Breezewood, where I-70 bumps into the old road.
Then the mountains took up in earnest and I had ample chance to test my downshifting skills as I twisted through the bronze-tinged peaks and valleys, whisking through the occasional stringtowns and pike towns–often peppered with stone houses and barns–on this road that in the 19th century was what passed for a turnpike. Suddenly found myself in a lovely “fair as the garden of the Lord” valley–there was even a sign pointing toward Edenville–filled with orchards and pastures, produce stands and dairy farms, such a contrast to what I had just been through! Then a picturesque string of buildings that comprised the village of St. Thomas. Reached Chambersburg, charming but congested, and spotted its Family Diner on the way out, with offerings such as sloppy joes and homemade soup. Yes!
Onward through more mountains on that beautiful two-lane road. Passed through Fayetteville, Caledonia State Park, and paused at the Thaddeus Stevens Blacksmith Shop, which I later discovered was renovated and restored by the Works Progress Administration in 1938. The original had been built in 1837 but was destroyed during the battle of Gettysburg. Rebuilt after the war, it remained in in business until the 1890s, after which it languished until the New Deal came along.
Gettysburg at last, still as I remembered it from passing through 30 years ago. Statues along the highway that were in tourists’ snapshots from the 1920s. Rolling hills laden with ghosts, even in the sun.
Gettysburg the town was charmingly historic, for the most part, albeit crowded. This Midwesterner is not accustomed to seeing so many wonderful late 18th/early 19th century structures! New Oxford, Abbottstown . . . the road becomes messy after that. York remains amazingly intact, even in its center. Market Street is narrow and congested, flanked by rowhouses with shops on the first floor, block after block. How I longed to explore–but so many miles to go before I could sleep.
Passed the York Fair, the oldest fair in the country, begun before America even was a country, in 1765. Then I spent quite awhile searching for a shoe. Not just any shoe, mind you, but another famous Lincoln Highway landmark, the Haines Shoe House, which, ironically, is today most visible from the US30 bypass. Built in 1948 by Mahlon Haines, the 25-foot tall oddity was intended to promote his forty shoe stores and stands up a hill from the Lincoln Highway on the west side of Hallam. Haines apparently allowed older couples to live in it, even providing groceries and other amenities. Later, honeymooners could register at his stores to stay there. The present owners offer tours of the five-level Shoe House, but it was closed for the season.
Continuing on the ever more crowded road, I stopped at Jim Mack’s (origins in the 1950s) for ice cream, then arrived in Wrightsville, where a stunning art deco bridge crossed the broad Susquehanna River to Columbia. When it was constructed in 1930 it was said to be the longest multiple arch concrete bridge in the world.
Entering Lancaster I found it to be much larger than I had imagined, although, like York, laden with blocks of late 18th/early 19th century buildings–and also very congested.
East of town was particularly sprawl-awful but bits of old highway kitsch kept it interesting, such as the Dutch Wonderland amusement park, built in 1963.
Finally I was back on a two-lane road again, but this was not the Lincoln Highway experience I had hoped for; once again, night was drawing nigh and I was a very long way from the cheap hotel in Trenton I’d booked. I continued on 30 and, even as accustomed as I am to following old roads, lost it. It seemed simply to end and I was uncertain where I was, only that by this point in the growing gloom, I knew I needed to make my way around the Philadelphia metropolis if I was ever to sleep (not to mention meeting friends who live in Princeton for supper.) After getting numerous wrong directions, 911 and the Pennsylvania State Police saved me while I was caught in a hopeless morass of cars on some unidentified interstate. Ironically their directions led me to drive on at least part of one iteration of the Lincoln Highway, the fabled Highway 1.
Modern technology kept me talking with those friends and letting them know of my progress toward Trenton, so they were able to meet me almost as soon as I arrived and whisked me off to a lovely and civilized supper, followed by a tour of Princeton by night and a visit to what I might call the Orson Welles memorial in Grovers Mill. Back to the Trenton hotel, which had not an ounce of charm. Exhaustion won out, however, and I dreamed of the next day’s adventures.
I can still feel it–the exhilaration of flying along the two-lane highway through the Alleghenies: the Lincoln Highway, once touted as America’s Main Street, in Pennsylvania!
This was the year, you see, that I was going to do the Lincoln Highway, the nation’s first coast-to-coast automobile highway, eastward from Indiana. I had always planned to take a week; I was sure I would need it. But life intervened as it will. I broke my leg, so I could not drive for a month (I have a stick, of course!) and even if I could, I was not getting around all that well for clambering in and out of a small pickup truck. The year grew late, but miraculously–one might say tragically, since climate change is the cause–autumn lingered and with it, lovely weather and the most beautiful light. I found four free days. Not enough, as I soon proved.
Since I do not live on the Lincoln Highway I had to start out early to catch it about halfway through Ohio, east of Mansfield. I have done the routes in this state before (and written about them, see past blogs), but only a couple of times past Canton. Wooster is a favorite town, though, so I did drive through, past its over-the-top courthouse, oddly placed on a corner lot with no surrounding grounds. Passed through Massillon, with its fantastic library overlooking the town–a 1930s WPA project that adapted a mid-19th century mansion into a stunning repository of books. Reached Canton, with its over-the-top courthouse.
From there the highway meanders in a slightly southeasterly direction through ever-higher hills. At Robertsville, where parts of the original brick road that I saw several years ago are now paved over, I took a marked Lincoln Highway bypass and become hopelessly lost on beautiful rural roads. If I’d had more time it would not have mattered, and I would have further explored the charming little town of Malvern, where I wasn’t supposed to be. There I found myself on a highway where a sign informed me I was going both north and south at the same time. It’s true! Routes 43 and 183, North and South, respectively. Get off the Lincoln Highway and enter the Twilight Zone
Found my way to Minerva and back on the Road, on to Lisbon (“oh no, that cute little drugstore with the fresh roasted nuts is gone!”) with its lovely square and 1871 courthouse.
And the Steel Trolley Diner, a classic, was also, sadly, closed–permanently? Signs were unclear. It was for sale–and I never got to eat there.
East Liverpool on the Ohio River at last, once home to scores of pottery manufacturers, now home to the Museum of Ceramics, located in the former downtown post office.
Late afternoon and it was November, after all, with earlier sundowns, plus I was heading east, into even earlier sundowns. I had miles to go before I slept and the prospect of driving through unfamiliar mountains in the dark. So I chose a later, shorter iteration of the Lincoln Highway route that crossed into West Virginia for a short stretch. I found the US30 bridge across the Ohio River much blocked by construction.
Erected in the 1970s, the massive steel truss bridge resulted in a reconfiguration of the Lincoln Highway’s crossing and routing on both sides. The route now skirts the north edge of Chester, West Virginia, where, along with Newell just to the south, most of the rest of the pottery factories were located (and Homer Laughlin still is.) A box truck that had pulled in front of me resolutely remained, so my enjoyment of this hilly, winding two-lane road was greatly diminished–and slowed! Pittsburgh was less than 50 miles away, but would I get beyond it before dark?
It was not to be. I reached an interstate bypass and determined to take it in order to get around Pittsburgh quickly, but that was not to be either! There were hopeless jams and tunnels with major construction projects. Foolishly I briefly got off downtown–straight into the traffic of that evening’s football game (what do I know about Monday night football?) I saw the Lincoln Highway route through downtown, the Boulevard of Allies, but it was a sea of cars. Frantically I managed to return to the bypass as the sun dipped behind the mountains. One more tunnel (also under construction) and I got off the bypass into a very tony forested suburban area.
Unknowingly in the twilight I crossed the stunning George Westinghouse Bridge built in 1932 and soon was driving through every type of sprawl imaginable. Fancy lifestyle centers. Auto dealerships. Strip malls. Fast food. Ugh. Not for me. Given the distance I had to cover, I had earlier opted to stop for food I could eat on the road: cheese curds and dried cherries purchased at Shisler’s Cheese House back in Ohio, west of Massillon. I was getting hungry and had hoped to have supper at some sort of diner or cafe. Though dark, it was still early, and I figured that soon I would be free of all the sprawl and in the mountains. But the sprawl went on and on and on.
Then suddenly all was dark. Very dark. All at once the mountains seemed to loom all around me. The narrowed road curved and dipped like the wildest roller coaster. I was climbing and descending in third gear, even second–once even in first. I kept passing signs–jumping into my headlights like scary mannequins on an amusement park dark ride–warning trucks to stay in low gear and other signs telling them to stop (and let things cool, I assume?) There were several runaway truck slopes, too, heading off into the darkness. I had no idea how close to the edge I was, nor much “down” was beyond it. Apart from those truck ramps, there were no places to pull off to the side. Harrowing? You bet. The mountains were heavily forested and I could see no lights. Rarely, I slipped through tiny stringtowns with no apparent businesses, only a few precarious houses hanging onto the edge of the road. No diner beckoned; I stopped for some gas at Jennerstown, which was supposed to have one, but I did not see it and I did not know how far I still had to go. Finally I rolled into what I later learned was Schellsburg and saw a most welcome grocery and deli! The folks inside blinked at me as if I were a Martian, but a sign advertised any deli sandwich $2.75. Fantastic! I ordered, fell gratefully into a chair along with my maps and route books and discovered I was less than five miles from the Lincoln Motor Court, my destination for the night. Hallelujah! I packed up my half-eaten sandwich and headed east; an oasis in the desert could not have been a more welcome sight. The owners, who, alas, have the place up for sale (but hope to sell it to someone who will continue its 80 years of tradition) were lovely and “old shoe,” as my mother used to say. They handed me the key to cabin 12 just across the driveway. I opened the door and exclaimed with delight.
There was a shimmer and I was in the 1940s, and my vehicle parked outside was not a Ford Ranger but a sturdy Model A, resting from its extreme endeavors just accomplished. The Lincoln Motor Court is said to be the last collection of tourist cabins still open on the Lincoln Highway. The rooms appear as they did in the first decades of the cabins’ existence. I finished my braunschweiger, tallied up the day in my journal, and sank into an unimaginably comfortable bed. I would be well rested for more adventures in the morning.