I’ve been walking that Lincoln Highway
I thought you knowed
Hard Traveling by Woody Guthrie
A little sun-kissed blonde is comin’ my way
Just beyond the Lincoln Highway
Golden Gate sung by Al Jolson
It seems to me that the Lincoln Highway is eclipsed in popularity by Route 66. They’re both classic roads in North America, but Route 66 has pop culture behind it. There’s the TV show Route 66, the Bobby Troup song (Get your Kicks on) Route 66, when the Joad family left Oklahoma in John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath (and in the movie) they did so on Route 66, and the fictitious town of Radiator Springs in the Pixar movie Cars was once a popular stopover on Route 66.
But the Lincoln Highway start date proceeded Route 66 by 13 years and actually celebrates its 100 Anniversary this year. The eastern part of the Lincoln Highway is marked in TImes Square at 42nd and Broadway, the western terminus marker is in San Francisco in front of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. The transcontinental road goes through 13 states including Iowa.
Yesterday after my video shoot in Illinois I drove on part of the Lincoln Highway into Cedar Rapids. In fact, here’s a iPhone photo from my shoot of a Model T—the kind of car that would have first driven the Lincoln Highway back in the day.
I was unaware of the Lincoln Highway until about a decade ago when I made a stop at the Great Platte River Road Archway in Kearney, Nebraska. Then a few years ago I read The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate by Micahel Wallis and Michael S. Willimson.
There have been some songs and books that referenced the Lincoln Highway but none as enduring as those for Route 66. I actually have a road trip screenplay I’m working on centered on a journey over the entire Lincoln Highway. Just trying to do my best to raise its pop culture status.
Below is the trailer for The Long, Long Trailer starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. The script written by Albert Hackett and Frances was based on the memior of the same name by Clinton Twiss (including segments on the Lincoln Highway). The second video is the PBS documentary A Ride Along the Lincoln Highway produced by Rick Sebak.
For more information check out the Lincoln Highway Association.
And a trip along US30 / Lincoln Highway in Iowa is not complete without a stop at the Youngville Café a hop and a skip west of Cedar Rapids, just where Hwy 218 goes north. It’s like stepping through a time warp to enter the café. The antique gas pumps in front signal that time here is still in the 40’s and 50’s.
(A lot further east along the Lincoln Highway, in Ronks, PA, one should not pass by Dienner’s Country Restaurant. At least not if one wants good Amish cooking.)