Tag Archives: Lincoln Highway in Wyoming

A Place to Appreciate the Power of Emptiness

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(Photo by Michael E. Grass)

The view of the Medicine Bow Mountains near Walcott, Wyo. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

WALCOTT, Wyo. — I’ve never been to Montana to see Big Sky Country but from the looks of the things, Wyoming could rightfully claim that title, too. On my way west from Laramie, I could have simply stuck to Interstate 80 and taken a shorter route through the southern tier of Wyoming.

But the Lincoln Highway bends north, roughly following the Union Pacific Railroad around the Medicine Bow Mountains before eventually rejoining I-80 to cross the Great Divide Basin. Many Lincoln Highway enthusiasts are adamant about taking the old, slower route. I can see why.

Thus far along my trek, this stretch of land might be the most impressive geography along the route. And this is where the combination of light, sky, clouds and topography were finally in harmony and my smartphone was able to capture the true grandeur of the territory.

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(Photo by Michael E. Grass)

Looking southwest along the Lincoln Highway near Walcott, Wyo. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

Because I was off I-80, I had an easier time making brief pitstops to enjoy this landscape. I was also mostly alone out here — passing cars were few and far between — so I essentially had this beautiful land all to myself.

In Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck wrote:

From the beginning of my journey, I had avoided the great high-speed slashes of concrete and tar called “thruways,” or “superhighways.” … These roads are wonderful for moving goods but not for inspection of a countryside. You are bound to the wheel and your eyes to the car ahead and to the rear-view mirror for the car behind and the side mirror for the car or truck about to pass, and you must read all the signs for fear you may miss some instructions or orders.

Bosler, Wyo. (Photo by Flickr user afiler via CC BY-SA 2.0 >>)

An abandoned school in Bosler, Wyo. (Photo by Flickr user afiler via CC BY-SA 2.0 >>)

This original route travels through the mostly abandoned settlement of Bosler, where, according to American Road, “the last souls packed up and left, leaving a ghost village of empty mobile homes and scrawny shacks” when I-80 opened in 1971.

I can understand why economics would drive most people out of this great land. And part of me is thankful that it did so I could enjoy this expanse on my own with few distractions.

There are, for sure, many places like this across the American West, but I want to think that this part of Wyoming could be the greatest, grandest and most impressive territory that anyone seeking to understand the power of emptiness could ever discover.

(Photo by Michael E. Grass)

This is a beautiful place. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

Lincoln at the Lincoln Highway’s Highest Point

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At a rest area along east of Laramie, Wyo., a towering statue of Abraham Lincoln is visible from Interstate 80. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

At a rest area along east of Laramie, Wyo., a towering statue of Abraham Lincoln is visible from Interstate 80. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

2013-06-17 14.41.34LARAMIE, Wyo. — Heading westward from Iowa, there are fewer and fewer signs marking the route of the Lincoln Highway. This is especially true in Wyoming, where significant sections of Interstate 80 west of Cheyenne were simply built over the original Lincoln Highway.

But Wyoming is home to a gigantic Abraham Lincoln monument along the route at the highway’s highest point, 8,835 feet at the Summit Rest Area on Sherman Hill.

The 16th president’s bust looks down on Interstate 80 from the top of a tall column built out of stones. The sound of the highway echos up to the Lincoln statue, especially as the sputtering of truck engine brakes cuts across the monotone hum of vehicular traffic.

According to RoadsideAmerica.com:

Lincoln’s head was built by Wyoming’s Parks Commission to honor Lincoln’s 150th birthday. It was sculpted by Robert Russin, a University of Wyoming art professor and a Lincoln fan (When he died in 2007, his ashes were interred in the hollow monument). The head originally was perched at Sherman Summit, 8,878 feet above sea level, the highest point along the old coast-to-coast Lincoln Highway. When I-80 was completed in 1969, the head was moved here — losing a couple of hundred feet (and any eponymous rationale for existing, really) but gaining a vast new audience.

Another monument to the Lincoln Highway near Laramie, Wyo. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

Another monument to the Lincoln Highway near Laramie, Wyo. (Photo by Michael E. Grass)

Adjacent to the Lincoln monument is a marker dedicated to Packard Motor Company president Henry B. Joy, the first president of the Lincoln Highway Association.

The road up to this point from Cheyenne, which sits at roughly 6,000 feet, travels across the high plains. This is what Colorado’s Front Range must have looked like before suburbia. The landscape here is certainly majestic and my photos don’t do the topography justice. It’s broad. It’s easy for the eyes to gaze out over the vast expanse.

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