Tama’s Lincoln Highway Bridge: A Landmark Spelled Out in Concrete

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The Lincoln Highway Bridge in Tama, Iowa, taken sometime after 1968. (Historic American Engineering Record photo via Library of Congress >>)

The Lincoln Highway Bridge in Tama, Iowa, taken sometime after 1968. (Historic American Engineering Record photo via Library of Congress >>)

TAMA, Iowa — For Lincoln Highway enthusiasts, a stop in this small town about an hour west of Cedar Rapids is mandatory. On its eastern approach into the town from the U.S. 30 expressway bypass — and just off an older local bypass — the Lincoln Highway travels over a short bridge spanning a small creek.

The famous Lincoln Highway Bridge in Tama, Iowa (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

The famous Lincoln Highway Bridge in Tama, Iowa (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

The concrete railing spells out “LINCOLN HIGHWAY.” It was a way for little Tama to stand apart from other towns proud to have the highway’s alignment go through their town. (Tama, in fact, hosts an annual Lincoln Highway Bridge Festival.)

By simply spelling two words out in concrete, this tiny town transformed the Lincoln Highway into its own modern monument. To the rest of the state, it showed that Tama wasn’t stuck in the mud.

Iowa’s often impassable dirt roads were notoriously bad. And there were disagreements on how to improve them or whether to improve them at all. 

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One Night in Cedar Rapids

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(From the Boston Public Library's Print Division via Flickr/CC BY 2.0 >>)

(From the Boston Public Library’s Print Division via Flickr/CC BY 2.0 >>)

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — If you’ve seen the 2011 film “Cedar Rapids” starring Ed Helms, John C. Reilly and Anne Heche, don’t expect to see much of the movie’s setting here in Iowa’s second-largest city. It was actually filmed in Ann Arbor, Mich.

The real Cedar Rapids is still recovering from Iowa’s record floods in 2008, which inundated much of downtown and low-lying neighborhoods on either side of the Cedar River, including Czech Village. (The National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library, which was damaged during the floods, is currently hosting a special exhibition featuring the “280 dazzling pins [former Secretary of State Madeleine] Albright wore to emphasize the importance of a negotiation, signify high hopes, protest the absence of progress, and show pride in representing the United States,” according to the museum.)

I didn’t have that much time to explore Cedar Rapids. As I pressed westward on the Lincoln Highway, this was just a one-night stopping-off point for my trip. The one downtown feature that’s hard to miss when driving through town is the Quaker Oats complex, where towering grain elevators serve the company’s large cereal mill, which opened here in 1873.

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Cloudgazing and Following Iowa’s Well-Marked Signs

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The skies over eastern Iowa, looking south from the Lincoln Highway near Clarence. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

The skies over eastern Iowa, looking south from the Lincoln Highway near Clarence. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

MOUNT VERNON, Iowa — Climbing out of the Mississippi Valley west of Clinton on the way toward DeWitt and westward to Cedar Rapids, a few things become abundantly clear about Iowa.

For starters, a heavily trafficked Union Pacific railroad line parallels U.S. 30 for much of the way through the state and westward into Nebraska. As I drove, freight trains became a regular presence along the Lincoln Highway.

Iowa is not flat, at least not here. Its handsome farmland spills out over a gently rolling terrain. Any road heading due west cuts across the local topography, which follows the contours of the creeks and rivers that generally run from the northwest to southeast toward the Mississippi.

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Somewhere along U.S. 30 in eastern Iowa. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

Somewhere along U.S. 30 in eastern Iowa. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

There are no mountains here for sure, but Iowa nonetheless is defined by it dramatic low-slung landscape. In parts, the farmland is like a patchwork quilt of different shades of greens and yellows.

It’s far from boring, especially in the moments when you’re cruising along at the optimal top speed — the limit is 65 mph in many sections through eastern Iowa — and the road flies over a Union Pacific train and you’re suddenly at pace or slightly faster than the parallel freight train hauling coal and grain across the state.

Iowa is a place for cloudgazing, too. Continue reading →

Windmill, Golden Dome Mark Lincoln Highway’s Mississippi Crossing

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This Archer Daniels Midland coal storage facility in Clinton, Iowa, is hard to miss. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

CLINTON, Iowa — There are two ways to cross the Mississippi River heading west on the Lincoln Highway from Illinois into Iowa. U.S. 30’s Gateway Bridge, a suspension span, provides a faster way through the area. But it skips Fulton, Ill., the town where the Lincoln Highway previously crossed on a bridge dating to 1891, later torn down and replaced.

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The Windmill Cultural Center in Fulton, Ill., sits adjacent to the town’s Mississippi River levee. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

Today, there’s a giant Dutch-style windmill that sits atop Fulton’s Mississippi River levee at the foot of 10th Avenue at 1st Street, where a the Windmill Cultural Center is located. Dutch settlers originally came to this spot along the Mississippi in 1835. Many more, including members of the Dutch Reformed Church, started coming in higher numbers in the 1870s. (The city hosted its Dutch Days in May.)

Today, you can take the 1970s era Mark N. Norris Bridge to connect with U.S. 67 to head into the heart of Clinton, formerly the “Lumber Capital of the World,” and link back up with U.S. 30 to head west. (My hometown, Grand Rapids, Mich., is the “Furniture Capital of the America.”) Clinton’s Sawmill Museum is on Grant Street, along Clinton’s Mississippi River levee.

Sawmills in Clinton processed lumber that came downriver from Minnesota and Wisconsin along the Mississippi. That processed lumber was then taken by rail to Chicago and points east, or to points farther downriver. But Clinton’s lumber boom went bust in the 1890s.

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Storm Dodging In Northern Illinois

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The dark clouds behind the big arch in Dixon, Ill., would blow up into a massive storm as it moved east. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

The dark clouds behind the big arch in Dixon, Ill., would blow up into a massive storm as it moved east. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

STERLING, Ill. — Driving into this Northern Illinois town on Wednesday afternoon, the skies behind me were very, very dark. Had I stuck around in Dixon, the town about 13 miles to the northeast where Ronald Reagan lived as a boy and Abraham Lincoln was stationed as  militia captain during the Black Hawk War, I likely would have been pounded by intense rain, wind, hail and who knows what else.

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Ronald Reagan Peace and Freedom Park in Dixon, Ill. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

Thanks to my Weather Channel smartphone app, I knew there was a small but intense storm cell about 10 miles outside Dixon. My current location was in the prediction path’s cone. I could tell from the foreboding skies to the southwest that it wasn’t a benign storm.

After quickly checking out Lee County Courthouse grounds, the Ronald Reagan Wings of Peace and Freedom Park and Dixon’s famous Veterans Memorial Arch over Galena Avenue, I got back on the road to continue on my way.

Abraham Lincoln spoke in Sterling, Ill., in 1856. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

Abraham Lincoln spoke in Sterling, Ill., in 1856. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

Fortunately, the path of the Lincoln Highway along the Rock River between Dixon and Sterling kept me just to the north of the storm. But I could see the rain in the distance. I could feel the wind on the car.

Right after I checked out the Lincoln statue in Sterling’s Propheter Park, which marks the spot where Lincoln delivered a speech in 1856 to support the presidential candidacy of Republican John C. Frémont, a tornado warning was issued by the National Weather Service.

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Racing Through Chicagoland’s Sprawling Southern Extremities

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JOLIET, Ill. — Driving west along the Lincoln Highway out of Indiana, U.S. 30 cuts through the southern extremities of Chicagoland. For a time, it follows part of the old Sauk Trail, the great path between the Mississippi River and the Detroit River developed by generations of Native Americans and improved by early European settlers.

U.S. 30 through the southern part of the Chicago metro area is under reconstruction. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

U.S. 30 through the southern part of the Chicago metro area is under reconstruction. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

The city of Chicago itself is more than 30 miles to the north but if you’re familiar with the Windy City’s major north-south thoroughfares, they’re down this way, too. Cottage Grove Avenue, State Street, Halsted Street, Ashland Avenue, Western Avenue, Pulaski Road, Cicero Avenue and Harlem Avenue disappear into the exurbs and farmland miles to the south of the Lincoln Highway.

After passing through gritty Chicago Heights, where there are scores of vacant lots and abandoned houses along the Lincoln Highway, U.S. 30 runs through mostly suburban areas on its way to Joliet, including Matteson, Frankfort, Mokena and New Lenox.

Besides the strip malls and big-box stores, there’s not much to see here. I was in somewhat of a hurry to pass through Chicagoland on my way to Iowa. Weather forecasts for Wednesday predicted big storms to develop during the late afternoon, so I had an ever-diminishing window of time to make my way through.

As I drove along U.S. 30 toward Joliet, the highway was under major reconstruction, but it didn’t slow me down too much.

Joliet is known for a few things.

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Beware of the ‘Socialist’ Roundabout in Valparaiso

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Indiana State Highway 2 bypasses Main Street, seen here, in tiny Westville. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

Indiana State Highway 2 bypasses Main Street, seen here, in tiny Westville. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

VALPARAISO, Ind. — When I reconnected with the Lincoln Highway in Mishawaka on Tuesday afternoon, I followed the original 1913 route, which takes a more northerly track through Northern Indiana via South Bend. The highway was later realigned to follow the more modern U.S. 30, which cuts a more direct route from Fort Wayne toward Chicago, linking up with the original route in Valparaiso.

After my afternoon stop in LaPorte, barbershop owner Adam Wilson suggested I check out the tiny town of Westville on my way to Valparaiso and perhaps stop in at Olga’s Restaurant, which I was told serves up some good pizza. Olga’s is owned by the Pecanac family, which eventually settled in Northwest Indiana after fleeing their native Croatia in 1994 during the civil war in Yugoslavia.

I pulled off State Highway 2, which bypasses the town of 5,800 people, and onto Main Street, which was lined with Lincoln Highway “Coast to Coast” banners. As I was driving around town, I found that there’s not too much the place.

I pulled off to the side of one street to check the rest of the route for the evening.

As I was looking at Google Maps on my smartphone, a portly older fellow walking in the street, bright red from a sunburn, approached me.

“Are you lost?” the man asked me.  Continue reading →

A Shave, Haircut and Refuge From the Rain at Wilson’s Barbershop

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Adam Wilson's collection of vintage and antique shaving and barbering items is on full display at his barbershop in La Porte, Ind. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

Adam Wilson’s collection of vintage and antique shaving and barbering items is on full display at his barbershop in La Porte, Ind. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

LA PORTE, Ind. — As I was walking along Lincolnway in the center of this town of 22,000 people about 30 miles west of South Bend, the skies turned dark and suddenly opened up late Tuesday afternoon.

I mistakenly forgot to bring an umbrella along for this trip, but fortunately for me, Wilson’s Barbershop and Shave Parlor, located in a charming 150-year-old downtown commercial building opposite the La Porte County Courthouse, was right there. In French, la porte means door and Wilson’s door was open.

Owner-barber Adam Wilson didn’t have any customers at the moment and my buzzcut needed to be tidied up in any regard, so the timing was perfect. We got to talking about La Porte and the ongoing renaissance of barbershop culture across the country.

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Exploring the Studebaker National Museum in South Bend

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The carriage Abraham Lincoln used the night of his assassination is on display at the Studebaker National Museum in South Bend, Ind.

The carriage Abraham Lincoln used the night of his assassination is on display at the Studebaker National Museum in South Bend, Ind.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — When I heard that the carriage Abraham Lincoln used the fateful night he went to Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., was on display at the Studebaker National Museum, I knew I needed to swing through the city that most of us know better as the home of the Fighting Irish.

Although I had heard of Studebaker Corporation, which ceased automobile production in the 1960s, I was not aware of Studebaker’s important transportation legacy, which dates back to the 1830s when John Clement Studebaker first constructed a Conestoga wagon to bring his family from Gettysburg, Pa., to Ashland, Ohio — two towns that would eventually find themselves on the Lincoln Highway.

Fast forward to 1852, when two Studebaker brothers, Henry and Clement, started a blacksmith shop at the corner of Michigan Street and Jefferson Boulevard in South Bend — one block from where the Lincoln Highway’s original 1913 route passes through downtown — and soon, the family business became known for its production of wagons and carriages, well before the age of the automobile. (I should note that the Lincoln carriage was not manufactured by Studebaker, but was purchased in 1889 for what would become the Studebaker collection of presidential carriages.)

When the horseless carriage started to gain steam, there was an intense debate over whether to produce an electric car or one powered by gasoline. J.M. Studebaker favored electric cars and said at the time that gasoline-powered cars are “clumsy, dangerous, noisy brutes which stink to high heaven, break down at the worst possible moment and are a public nuisance.”

The first Studebaker electric car came in 1902. Thomas Edison purchased the second such car produced by the company. But the the economics of automobile production soon favored gasoline-powered cars and Studebaker stopped making electric cars. The production of Studebaker’s horse-drawn vehicles, meanwhile, ceased in 1920, according to the museum.

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