War Memorial Arch over Lincoln Highway in Dixon, IL

In this series of posts, we journey on the Lincoln Highway from New York City to San Francisco, taking it state by state. Go here for an introduction.

Illinois proclaims on its license plates that it is the “Land of Lincoln.” It is therefore fitting that the national headquarters of the Lincoln Highway Association are located in Franklin Grove, IL, a small town smack in the middle of the state’s Lincoln Highway miles.

Westward all the way from Philadelphia, it’s been possible to follow the route of the Highway most of the time by driving US 30. It gets more complicated in Illinois. Entering the state from Schererville, IN, we follow Route 30 as far as Aurora, but then veer north on IL 31 to Geneva. There, we turn west on IL 38 and journey through De Kalb, Rochelle, and Dixon. At Sterling, the Highway rejoins US 30 and departs the state at Fulton to cross the Mississippi River into Iowa.

Soon after entering Illinois, we pass through Chicago Heights, which the city proudly proclaims is “The Crossroads of the Nation.” At first glance, it doesn’t seem all that obvious why the city deserves this description. Shouldn’t the crossroads be closer to the geographic center of the United States, which is Lebanon, Kansas—much further south and west?

The reason is more historic than geographic: Chicago Heights is where the Lincoln Highway crosses the Dixie Highway, a highway that was inspired by the Lincoln—the Dixie project was organized in 1914, just a year after the Lincoln Highway was conceived. It, too, was promoted by Carl G. Fisher. Both were part of the National Auto Trail system.

Fountain erected by Arche Women's Club in 1916 at Lincoln-Dixie intersection

As you see from the map below, the Dixie Highway was not a single route but rather a set of interconnected highways. It had a major split between an Eastern Division and a Western Division (the Western is what passed through Chicago Heights), with various connecting links.

Map of the Dixie Highway

Looked at from one point of view—the large number of divergences and splits in the route—the Dixie Highway disappoints. But from another point of view, it’s wonderful: you can follow it from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, to Miami. I was even more intrigued when I suddenly realized that I live just a block away from its Carolina Division, which uses what’s now US 25 to go from Knoxville to Waynesboro. Yes, that’s Weaverville Road in Asheville!

Chicago Heights had to fight for the Lincoln Highway to be routed through its downtown area. Back in 1914, the Chicago Heights Automobile Association learned that the Lincoln Highway was to bypass it to the south, going through Frankfort. This was not to be! The citizens of Chicago Heights marshaled their forces. On the quickly designated Illinois Good Roads Day (April 15, 1914), residents of the city went out to spread100 loads of stone on what would become the Highway’s route south of downtown. The Lincoln Highway Association, impressed by the dedication and the sweat, decided to route the highway through downtown Chicago Heights, thus giving travelers the benefit of the city’s hotels, restaurants, and garages, and the city the benefit of all that extra business.

Driving west of Chicago Heights, we arrive at Geneva, which boasts the Fabyan Windmill, dating to the 1850s. Oddly enough, we will encounter another windmill along the route of the Lincoln Highway in Illinois.

Windmill in Geneva, IL

In De Kalb, it’s possible to visit the Barbed Wire History Museum, which commemorates the inventions of city resident Joseph Glidden.

Glidden's four-point triangular line (top) and military concertina wire (bottom)

Continuing across the state, we arrive at Rochelle, known as “Hub City.” As in the case of Chicago Heights, the reason for the designation isn’t all that obvious from a glance at the map, but here the explanation lies in railroads as much as highways: it is located at the crossroads of two major rail lines, the Union Pacific and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe. What’s really great is that the city has created a park where railfans (English equivalent: trainspotters) can watch trains pass through this junction.

Diamond junction of UP and BNSF

As something of a railroad buff myself, I was enthralled when I learned the story of the Rochelle Railroad Park. Apparently, railfans were parking very close to the interchange siding to watch the trains go by, creating a safety hazard. Rather than banning viewers from the area, the city decided to create a park where railfans could safely watch the trains. It created an elevated viewing platform with picnic tables and added a museum, complete with a re-created hobo jungle as well as a historic locomotive, a display of tracks, and a model railroad shop.

The city even included a scanner in the picnic area so that railfans can hear radio traffic on the two railroads. Fantastic! I hope to go there myself some day.

At Franklin Grove, travelers can visit the national headquarters of the Lincoln Highway Association. That is another place I would like to visit.

Downtown Franklin Grove

Further along, the town of Dixon is known not only for its War Memorial Arch (see at top) but for its Petunia Festival. In the early 1960s, after Dixon’s elms were decimated by Dutch elm disease, the town decided to beautify its streets by planting thousands of pink petunias. The petunias continue to be planted, watered, and maintained every year, and in July, Dixon puts on a parade, carnival, concert, and fireworks show.

At the western border of the state in Fulton, travelers can view another windmill. The interesting thing is that this is a recent construction. The city of Fulton contracted with a Dutch company to build the structure. The parts were fabricated in Holland and shipped to Illinois, where they were assembled in 1999. Today, the mill grinds wheat, buckwheat, rye, and cornmeal atop a flood control dike on the Mississippi.

De Immigrant Windmill, Fulton, IL

And now we cross the mightiest river and enter the West.

Lincoln Highway in De Kalb

Asheville

Today I went on a short hike on the Mountains-to-Sea trail. I’ve been recovering from flu and needed something to get back into gear. I started at Ox Creek Road, went to Rattlesnake Lodge, then took the steep route up to the upper spring and looped back down. This is a very popular hike with Ashevilleans, at least as far as Rattlesnake Lodge. It offers all the basic ingredients: views, historic interest (remains of the old lodge buildings from the early 1900s), distance suitable for a stretch-your-legs sort of outing.

It becomes even more heavily used when the Blue Ridge Parkway is closed north of Bull Gap, because that cuts off several other good hiking options close to town. Right now the BRP is closed all the way from Bull Gap to NC 80 because that section goes through a 5000′+ elevation zone from the Craggies to Mt. Mitchell. I wouldn’t guess there’s much ice on it at the moment, but we’ve gotten to the time of year when it just stays shut so that the Park Service doesn’t have to bother with it.

Blue Ridge Parkway sign

I’ve discovered with this MST section that a lot of people like to hit it in the early afternoon, after they’ve gotten some work done (like me) or gone to classes and just need a break. This time I got there before peak hiking traffic hit, and I made it all the way up to the spring before I started seeing people—lots of people—all kinds of people. Today it seemed that the variety of humanity was particularly entertaining.

My first encounter was startling for both of us. I was pushing up to the spring and emerged abruptly onto the upper trail, only to find myself practically on top of a refined-looking man with a silver beard who’d been peacefully eating his sandwich. He looked at me as if I’d come from outer space, but in a moment recovered himself enough to greet me politely.

Next I encountered two women with a large dog, a configuration frequently encountered in Asheville. They were not dressed like the women in the Wikimedia photo below, but it’s such a great photo that I include it just for fun.

Note the guy on the park bench

Next I encountered a playful young couple. He was picking her up and carrying her down the trail—her legs were around his hips and her arms encircled his neck. Not flustered at all by my appearance on the scene, they had just reached a large grapevine hanging from a tree, and it looked like he was going to try to swing on the vine with her hanging onto him!

Next, a mismatched pair: a short middle-aged woman in a pink parka, carrying no pack, with a young man carrying a very large overnight backpack. She looked like she might be his mother. I greeted them, and the young man spontaneously explained that he was training for doing some hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Whether or not it was his mother, I thought it was wonderful that this unathletic-looking woman was giving him companionship and support!

Map of A.T.

Next, a 50-ish woman who looked like a practitioner of yoga (at any rate, there was a car in the trailhead parking area with a bumper sticker for a yoga studio, and she seemed like the most likely match).

Next, father and daughter who looked maybe six. She was explaining to him, “Daddy, water is good for you. Can I have some water?”

Finally—best of all—two guys carrying skateboards. It took me a moment to figure it out. “You’re going on the Parkway!” I exclaimed. They laughed at my momentary confusion. What a great idea: with the section of Parkway closed that runs very close to and parallel to the trail, they were hiking up to the Tanbark tunnel connector, where they’d head down to the BRP and have a beautiful cruise down several miles of empty pavement!

Henry C. Ostermann used a Packard Twin Six as the pilot car for the 1919 Motor Transport Convoy. His model was white, as opposed to the two-tone colors of this beautifully restored edition.

In this series of posts, we journey on the Lincoln Highway from New York City to San Francisco, taking it state by state. Go here for an introduction.

Indiana’s most notable contribution to the Lincoln Highway may well be the “Ideal Section” of highway located near Dyer in the northwest corner of the state. The Ideal Section carried US Route 30 traffic until 1997, when it was obliterated by a widening project. However, alongside the former road section still stands a memorial to Henry C. Ostermann, avid promoter of the Highway.

In the early years of Lincoln Highway construction, “seedling miles” were built as examples of how a highway should be designed and to stimulate further construction. In 1920, Austin Bemment of the Lincoln Highway Association set about organizing funding and construction of the ultimate seedling mile, the Ideal Section.

Funded by the United States Rubber Company as well as local, state, and federal governments, the 1.3-mile Ideal Section had four 10-foot lanes of steel-reinforced concrete, making it one of the first four-lane highways in the nation. The four-lane concept was a remote ancestor of present-day versions, however, as it had no median and no shoulders. But the Ideal Section boasted overhead lighting—so that cars “need not use headlamps”—at least for that one mile! The four lanes tapered to two at each end, places where unfortunately quite a few accidents occurred in the merging process.

Sadly, highway promoter and LHA field secretary Ostermann was killed in a car accident in Iowa the same year that work on the Ideal Section began. The LHA commissioned landscape architect Jens Jensen to design a memorial to Ostermann as well as other features along the Section. Jensen, known for his work in the Chicago park system, also drew designs for an Ideal Campsite and an Ideal Filling Station—a limestone structure that housed gas station, store, and rest rooms. (The campsite and filling station were never actually built.) Promoters envisioned the Ideal Section as spurring growth of other Ideal features in the vicinity, such as beautiful country homes and a golf course.

Brevet Lt. Col. Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) participated in the 1919 convoy, guided by Ostermann

The year before he died, Ostermann had played a key role in the 1919 Motor Transport Corps convoy. Having driven across the nation 19 times, he was literally the only one who knew the way across what was then still a patchwork of roads that ranged from concrete to mud. The convoy started in Washington, DC, but joined the Lincoln Highway route in Pennsylvania. In his white Packard Twin Six, Ostermann drove two to ten days ahead of the main convoy. (I plan to devote a separate blog post to this convoy.)

The route of the Lincoln Highway across Indiana changed significantly in 1928. Before that time, the highway followed the route of the New York Central Railroad through populated regions of northern Indiana, taking it through Elkhart and South Bend along what is now US Route 33. The more direct route westward from Fort Wayne along the route of the Pittsburgh, Ft. Wayne & Chicago Railroad traversed a rural area that featured virtually no automobile traffic. It wasn’t until 1928 that the highway took that more direct route along what became US 30, in the process knocking 20 miles off the state-wide distance.

Because the earlier, more northerly route went through the more populated area of the state, most of the major points of interest are found there rather than along the post-1928 route. In the following, I share a few pictures of points and related historical images along the way.

For travelers coming from Ohio on Route 30, Fort Wayne is the gateway to Indiana. The fort was founded by “Mad Anthony Wayne,” the active and aggressive Revolutionary War commander who served in many locales, most notably at Stony Point on the Hudson in 1779, where he personally led a bayonet attack by night on a British stronghold. His connection with the Indiana locale came after the war in 1794, when under his direction the U.S. Army built Fort Wayne as one of a series of constructions near villages of the Miami Indians.

"Mad Anthony" Wayne

Continuing northwest of Fort Wayne, an original brick section of the Lincoln Highway has been preserved near Ligonier.

Brick section near Ligonier on Old Route 33

Ligonier also boasts a handsome town clock.

Ligonier town clock

The Elkhart County Courthouse is one of many admirable examples of courthouse architecture along the Highway.

Elkhart County Courthouse in Goshen

Goshen is famous for a pair of tornadoes that destroyed a trailer park and a housing development in nearby Dunlap on April 11, 1965. Numerous other tornadoes struck Elkhart County that day, including other parts of Goshen.

The twin funnels must have been a terrifying sight.

Moving west to South Bend, any aficionado of highway and automobile history would surely want to visit the Studebaker Museum. Its exhibits include not only many Studebaker car models but vehicles produced for military purposes as well as wagons and carriages of historic interest.

Studebaker Sceptre concept car, produced in the 1960s

In La Porte County, we pass another attractive courthouse. I can’t help but wonder if there was friendly competition between these Indiana counties to build the most impressive structure!

La Porte County Courthouse

As we approach the Illinois border, we come to the town of Dyer, the location of the former Ideal Section and the Henry Ostermann Memorial Bench, which can be found adjoining a monument to the Sauk Trail.

A pleasant place to exit the Lincoln Highway's Indiana segment.