Pennsylvania’s portion of the Lincoln Highway is a road trip filled with history and memories. The highway originally traversed 3,389 miles across the United States, from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, and 360 miles crossed Pennsylvania.
While the Pennsylvania portion may not be the grandest of roadways, it may be the most American in the way that it speaks to the fabric of who we are as a country. Between the carnage of Gettysburg and the brave actions of the passengers on Flight 93, you can visit the room where Lincoln penned the Gettysburg Address and the house where abolitionist John Brown plotted a rebellion of slaves. Along the way, motorists cross the Susquehanna River, believed to be one of the oldest rivers in the world. It is the place to find “the mystic chords of memory” and “the better angels of our nature” that Lincoln talked about.
HISTORY
When the Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental highway in the United States, opened in 1913, the road trip hadn’t yet become part of popular American culture. But the land the highway traveled upon in Pennsylvania already had stories to tell. Stories that involved battles and bloodshed, massacres, the ghosts of slavery, and tales of the Underground Railroad.
OVERSIZE AND UNUSUAL
Larger-than-life buildings and advertising were commonplace during the first half of the 20th century. They proved more successful than one-dimensional billboards at catching and piquing the curiosity of motorists to make a stop. The buildings came shaped like coffeepots and airplanes, ships, and zeppelins.
With its cumulative ascent of 13,000 feet in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains, Lincoln Highway placed a high demand on vehicles. Roadside attractions were built as much for cars as their occupants, places for boiling radiators and overheated brakes to cool.
ALONGSIDE THE ROAD
When the first section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike opened in 1940, the Lincoln Highway could no longer compete in the Keystone State. The turnpike’s seven tunnels through the Allegheny Mountains made travel faster and less of a stamina test for vehicles.
The Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor, created in 1995, has worked to preserve the character of the highway through the six counties of Adams, Franklin, Fulton, Bedford, Somerset, and Westmoreland. As shopping plazas and fast-food chains continue to encroach, this chain of small towns struggles for attention and their place in roadway history.
My local library in PA has an exhibit on the Lincoln highway. Some pretty cool buildings popped up as roadside attractions that are in serious disrepair. Like a diner in a giant coffee carafe.