Aug. 17, 2007
BOOK REVIEW: Calling All ‘Shunpikers’: Lincoln Highway Book Celebrates America’s ‘Father Road’ with Words and Pictures; It’s a Coffee Table Book and Guidebook in One
By David M. Kinchen
Huntington News Network Book Critic
At the beginning of “The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate” (W.W. Norton, 320 pages, bibliography – but NO INDEX -- 300 illustrations, $39.95) author Michael Wallis makes the distinction between a tourist and a traveler.
Tourists, he says, stick to the “superslab” of the Interstates because they know what to expect from the franchised restaurants and motels there, while travelers have a more adventurous streak and like to be surprised by people like Chester, WV’s pie man Gene Amos (Page 76). Wallis has produced a wonderful coffee table book (perhaps to be enjoyed with one of Amos’ home-baked fruit pies – he actually bakes them in his home kitchen) that will appeal to the traveler in all of us.
At the start of this review, I want to recognize and laud the photography of his traveling companion, Michael S. Williamson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who works for the Washington Post. Williamson has produced outstanding photos that are supplemented by vintage postcards and photographs that bring the nation’s “Father Road” to life.
Route 66 – chronicled in a best-selling picture/text book by Wallis entitled "Route 66" – is often called the “Mother Road.” It dates from 1926 and – as the iconic Bobby Troup song from 1946 says “It winds from Chicago to L.A., More than 2,000 miles all the way…” Actually, the mileage was 2,448 miles from Chicago to the Santa Monica Pier.
The “Father Road” – the Lincoln Highway – dates from 1913 and was a product of one of the nation’s most creative entrepreneurs, Carl G. Fisher (1874-1939), the Hoosier native also responsible for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Dixie Highway and the development of Miami Beach. Working with Frank Seiberling, founder of both Goodyear Tire and Rubber and Seiberling Tire, and Henry B. Joy, president of the Packard Motor Co. Fisher envisioned an improved, hard-surfaced road stretching almost 3,400 miles from coast to coast, New York to San Francisco, over the shortest practical route.
The Lincoln Highway Association was created in 1913 to promote the road using private and corporate donations. The idea was embraced by an enthusiastic public, and many other named roads across the country followed, including Fisher’s own Dixie Highway from Traverse City, Michigan to Miami, FL.
A personal note: I grew up in Rochelle, Illinois, about 80 miles west of Chicago and a Lincoln Highway town. Rochelle is included in the book, but I noted (on Page 135) what is an error on Wallis’ part. He says that Rochelle (its nickname is the Hub City and is the home town of actress Joan Allen, currently starring in “The Bourne Ultimatum”) is where the Lincoln Highway and the Meridian Highway -- later U.S. 81 and still later U.S. 281 -- intersected.
Actually, Rochelle is where the Lincoln Highway – now IL 38—and U.S. 51 intersected. The Meridian Highway, roughly paralleling the 97th meridian of longitude, connects Winnipeg, Canada, to Laredo, Texas and continues on south as part of the Pan American Highway. As Wallis himself notes (Page 176), the Meridian Highway intersects the Lincoln Highway at Columbus, Nebraska.
According to its Wikipedia entry: “As the only primary north-south highway girding America’s heartland, the Meridian intersected with dozens of named trails, including the Old Spanish Trail at San Antonio; the Bankead Highway at Fort Worth; the Ozark Trails at Oklahoma City; the National Old Trails at Wichita; the Santa Fe Trail at Newton, Kansas; the Victory Highway at Salina, Kansas; the Lincoln Highway at Columbus, Nebraska; and the Yellowstone Trail, at Millbank, South Dakota. In 1926 most of the 2,400-mile-long Meridian Road was converted into U.S. 81, an improved two-lane highway connecting Laredo to Joliette, North Dakota.”
Wallis and Williamson take us on a journey that only a few decades ago was part of the growing up process for families piling into the Ford Country Squire or Olds VistaCruiser –a family vacation in the summer when school let out -- with cries of “I have to pee” and “Are we there yet” resonating throughout the steaming hot fake woodie jammed to the headliner with young baby boomers.
The Lincoln begins its 13-state westward journey in Times Square, crosses into New Jersey, goes through the Pennsylvania Dutch Country and embraces five miles of West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle in Hancock County, the state’s smallest and most northern county.
I like to think of the Lincoln Highway as the Heartland Road, as it goes across Ohio, northern Indiana, almost 150 miles of northern Illinois (the headquarters of the Lincoln Highway Association is in Franklin Grove, IL, a dozen or so miles west of Rochelle) and on and on through Iowa, Nebraska and the west.
As Wallis points out throughout the book, the alignment of the Lincoln Highway was changed during the years of its popularity, before the Interstate system changed all the travelers into tourists.
In Illinois, specifically the town of Plainfield near Aurora, southwest of Chicago, the Mother Road (Route 66) and the Father Road (The Lincoln) share several miles of pavement.
As I’ve said, the photography of Michael Williamson is simply magnificent. I love one particular photo (on Page 190) of four horses by the side of the road in Nebraska. Three of them are in silhouette, while the other one – a young colt or filly – is shown in its natural color. Williamson’s night photo of the “Biggest Little City in the World” arch on Virginia Street in Reno, NV (Page 264) is another of my favorites.
All along the way, Wallis and Williamson meet friendly people who’ve managed to survive the advent of the Interstate system in towns like Ely, Nevada , Rock Springs, Wyoming and Auburn, California.
So, if you have the time and the inclination to be a traveler and not just another tourist, grab “The Lincoln Highway” by Wallis (who voiced the Sheriff in the animated Pixar flick “Cars”) and Williamson and get your kicks on the Lincoln Highway. You won’t regret the journey.
Publisher’s web site: www.wwnorton.com
BOOK REVIEW: Calling All ‘Shunpikers’: Lincoln Highway Book Celebrates America’s ‘Father Road’ with Words and Pictures; It’s a Coffee Table Book and Guidebook in One
By David M. Kinchen
Huntington News Network Book Critic
At the beginning of “The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate” (W.W. Norton, 320 pages, bibliography – but NO INDEX -- 300 illustrations, $39.95) author Michael Wallis makes the distinction between a tourist and a traveler.
Tourists, he says, stick to the “superslab” of the Interstates because they know what to expect from the franchised restaurants and motels there, while travelers have a more adventurous streak and like to be surprised by people like Chester, WV’s pie man Gene Amos (Page 76). Wallis has produced a wonderful coffee table book (perhaps to be enjoyed with one of Amos’ home-baked fruit pies – he actually bakes them in his home kitchen) that will appeal to the traveler in all of us.
At the start of this review, I want to recognize and laud the photography of his traveling companion, Michael S. Williamson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who works for the Washington Post. Williamson has produced outstanding photos that are supplemented by vintage postcards and photographs that bring the nation’s “Father Road” to life.
Route 66 – chronicled in a best-selling picture/text book by Wallis entitled "Route 66" – is often called the “Mother Road.” It dates from 1926 and – as the iconic Bobby Troup song from 1946 says “It winds from Chicago to L.A., More than 2,000 miles all the way…” Actually, the mileage was 2,448 miles from Chicago to the Santa Monica Pier.
The “Father Road” – the Lincoln Highway – dates from 1913 and was a product of one of the nation’s most creative entrepreneurs, Carl G. Fisher (1874-1939), the Hoosier native also responsible for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Dixie Highway and the development of Miami Beach. Working with Frank Seiberling, founder of both Goodyear Tire and Rubber and Seiberling Tire, and Henry B. Joy, president of the Packard Motor Co. Fisher envisioned an improved, hard-surfaced road stretching almost 3,400 miles from coast to coast, New York to San Francisco, over the shortest practical route.
The Lincoln Highway Association was created in 1913 to promote the road using private and corporate donations. The idea was embraced by an enthusiastic public, and many other named roads across the country followed, including Fisher’s own Dixie Highway from Traverse City, Michigan to Miami, FL.
A personal note: I grew up in Rochelle, Illinois, about 80 miles west of Chicago and a Lincoln Highway town. Rochelle is included in the book, but I noted (on Page 135) what is an error on Wallis’ part. He says that Rochelle (its nickname is the Hub City and is the home town of actress Joan Allen, currently starring in “The Bourne Ultimatum”) is where the Lincoln Highway and the Meridian Highway -- later U.S. 81 and still later U.S. 281 -- intersected.
Actually, Rochelle is where the Lincoln Highway – now IL 38—and U.S. 51 intersected. The Meridian Highway, roughly paralleling the 97th meridian of longitude, connects Winnipeg, Canada, to Laredo, Texas and continues on south as part of the Pan American Highway. As Wallis himself notes (Page 176), the Meridian Highway intersects the Lincoln Highway at Columbus, Nebraska.
According to its Wikipedia entry: “As the only primary north-south highway girding America’s heartland, the Meridian intersected with dozens of named trails, including the Old Spanish Trail at San Antonio; the Bankead Highway at Fort Worth; the Ozark Trails at Oklahoma City; the National Old Trails at Wichita; the Santa Fe Trail at Newton, Kansas; the Victory Highway at Salina, Kansas; the Lincoln Highway at Columbus, Nebraska; and the Yellowstone Trail, at Millbank, South Dakota. In 1926 most of the 2,400-mile-long Meridian Road was converted into U.S. 81, an improved two-lane highway connecting Laredo to Joliette, North Dakota.”
Wallis and Williamson take us on a journey that only a few decades ago was part of the growing up process for families piling into the Ford Country Squire or Olds VistaCruiser –a family vacation in the summer when school let out -- with cries of “I have to pee” and “Are we there yet” resonating throughout the steaming hot fake woodie jammed to the headliner with young baby boomers.
The Lincoln begins its 13-state westward journey in Times Square, crosses into New Jersey, goes through the Pennsylvania Dutch Country and embraces five miles of West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle in Hancock County, the state’s smallest and most northern county.
I like to think of the Lincoln Highway as the Heartland Road, as it goes across Ohio, northern Indiana, almost 150 miles of northern Illinois (the headquarters of the Lincoln Highway Association is in Franklin Grove, IL, a dozen or so miles west of Rochelle) and on and on through Iowa, Nebraska and the west.
As Wallis points out throughout the book, the alignment of the Lincoln Highway was changed during the years of its popularity, before the Interstate system changed all the travelers into tourists.
In Illinois, specifically the town of Plainfield near Aurora, southwest of Chicago, the Mother Road (Route 66) and the Father Road (The Lincoln) share several miles of pavement.
As I’ve said, the photography of Michael Williamson is simply magnificent. I love one particular photo (on Page 190) of four horses by the side of the road in Nebraska. Three of them are in silhouette, while the other one – a young colt or filly – is shown in its natural color. Williamson’s night photo of the “Biggest Little City in the World” arch on Virginia Street in Reno, NV (Page 264) is another of my favorites.
All along the way, Wallis and Williamson meet friendly people who’ve managed to survive the advent of the Interstate system in towns like Ely, Nevada , Rock Springs, Wyoming and Auburn, California.
So, if you have the time and the inclination to be a traveler and not just another tourist, grab “The Lincoln Highway” by Wallis (who voiced the Sheriff in the animated Pixar flick “Cars”) and Williamson and get your kicks on the Lincoln Highway. You won’t regret the journey.
Publisher’s web site: www.wwnorton.com
