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September 8, 2015 LINCOLN HIGHWAY
Road to recognition Petition drive aims to get road designated a national monument BY ADAM POULISSE
DeKALB – John O’Halloran got his kicks on the Lincoln Highway 2 years ago. He left his Twombly Road home with his partner, Robert Reinhold, and drove a 1948 Hudson to San Francisco along the first hard-surfaced improved transcontinental highway. “It’s a lovely, not-heavily traveled road because most motorists take the interstate,” said O’Halloran, who also is a member of the Franklin Grove-based Lincoln Highway Association. “It epitomizes the beauty of America. You’re not pressed by the high speeds. Everybody on the interstate wants to drive 80 mph.” But for all its history, Lincoln Highway is still not recognized by the federal government as a national monument. Residents near and far are looking to give the 3,389-mile coast-to-coast highway that cuts through more than 700 big cities and small villages the recognition they say it deserves. Because it originally was called the Lincoln Memorial Highway, and it’s older than the 93-yearold Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., recognizing the highway as a national monument is the best option, said Kay Shelton of DeKalb, national president of the Lincoln
Highway Association. “It’s a low-cost way of recognizing it as a tourist destination,” Shelton said. “It’s the road itself, so the mapping is already done. But getting it recognized means the federal government considers that, yes, this is a historical road meant to recognize Abraham Lincoln. That has infinite[ly stronger] pull to let the American people know this is an important road.” A change.org petition urging President Barack Obama to recognize the Lincoln Highway as a national monument has 350 of its 500-signature goal, but it still needs “thousands” more before becoming a national monument, Shelton said. “We think the road’s wonderful, but it says a lot more if the federal government says ‘Yes, this is an important road to American history’,” she said. Lincoln Highway has a storied history aside from its honest namesake – former President Dwight Eisenhower had some involvement, too. As a young lieutenant colonel in America’s first Transcontinental Army convoy in 1919, Eisenhower and his crew encountered muddy terrain and bridges that couldn’t accommodate the convoy, Shelton said. Memories of that trip, plus his experience on the German Autobahn,
spurred Eisenhower to sign the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, which allowed $25 billion to construct the 41,000-mile Interstate Highway System. The Illinois Highway Coalition’s website, drivelincolnhighway.com, provides a statewide point of view of the throughway. Also known as state Route 38, the highway is a main artery for downtown DeKalb. A portion of it is closed for the annual Corn Fest, and it’s a busy street during Northern Illinois University’s move-in day. “DeKalb was the first to rename one of its roads the Lincoln Highway,” Shelton said. “If you go from one part of the county to another, right down the middle is Lincoln Highway, and it connects the rural areas west of here.” A PBS documentary, “A Ride Along Lincoln Highway,” plays overseas and on international flights, and has caused the roadway to receive wider attention. “We have people who come from all over the world, and I literally mean all over the world,” Asp said. “Mongolia, Australia, South America, Africa ... .” These days, you can still drive on most of the original Lincoln Highway, although some alterations were made through the years, including rerouting it around Dugway
Proving Ground in Utah, and removing a hairpin turn at the Iowa-Illinois border. In Wyoming, Utah and California, sections of I-80 are paved directly over parts of the original highway. Driving the highway is what Lucianne Boardman of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, plans to do. Beginning Monday, she will fly to San Francisco and meet up with her two sisters – one also lives in Wisconsin, another lives in Alaska – and drive the full Lincoln Highway to the East Coast. They will be doing it to honor their great-great aunt Anita King, a silent film star who, in 1915, became the first female to drive solo the Lincoln Highway from one coast to another. She started her journey in San Francisco, just like her great-great nieces will. If they stick to their itinerary, they should be in DeKalb on Sept. 11, Boardman said. “One problem with it is it’s different roads,” she said. “It’s just not one highway.” Along the way, the sisters will be asking people to sign the petition to change the highway into a national monument.
Monica Synett
A Lincoln Highway mural decorates the side of a business Thursday at the corner of Lincoln Highway and Seventh Street in DeKalb.
Monica Synett
An Abraham Lincoln-themed husky is posted Thursday at the Kishwaukee Kiwanis Park on the corner of Lincoln Highway and Eleventh Street in DeKalb.
To lend your support Go to change.org/p/barack-obama-recognizethe-lincoln-highway-as-a-national-monument-toabraham-lincoln to sign the petition in support of making the Lincoln Highway a national monument.
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