Traveling The Lincoln Highway, America’s Main Street

By Dottie Evans

“Roads and life are always under construction.”

­­––Church sign in Breezeway, Penn., seen along the Lincoln Highway

The Lincoln Highway was a dirt and gravel road laid out in 1913, and billed as the first transcontinental route connecting New York City to San Francisco. Built totally through private enterprise, it cost $10 million and was completed in 1915.

It predated Route 66 (laid out in 1926) and its relatively straight path crossed the country north of where Interstate 80 would eventually go.

Planned as the straightest possible East-West route from coast-to-coast, the Lincoln Highway passed through rural America, cutting a narrow, at times single-lane swath through cornfields and one-horse towns. There was no attempt at detours or spurs to pass important national monuments and parks or visit the large cities, because that would have lengthened the trip.

Today, large portions of the “highway” still exist, and though much has been paved over, much remains as it was 90 years ago –– dusty and rutty when dry, nearly impassable when wet.

The route is marked by 3,000 concrete posts with the letter “L” erected in 1928, and the small towns through which the it passes are still small towns, no more than tiny dots on the map.

The idea of a 21st Century traveler choosing to drive 3,300 miles cross country on this ancient road, spending the night in America’s most modest, rural towns with nothing to see along the way but endless corn fields and the dust from the car ahead, well, it might not appeal to everybody.

Add to this the concept of a whole caravan of travelers following each other along the Lincoln Highway for 16 days at the end of summer, all driving vintage antique cars without A/C, any one of which might throw a rod the first day. In addition, the trip would be broken up into 225-mile segments, so no one could go faster than about 40 miles an hour.

It sounds ludicrous.

Or fabulous, if you are Newtown residents, Eleanor and David Zolov.

Dr and Mrs Zolov recently completed a special 90th Anniversary Coast To Coast Tour of the Lincoln Highway, traveling between New York City and San Francisco between August 17 and September 1.

They joined 50 other antique car enthusiasts who were driving vehicles dating from 1913 to 2003, and even though the Zolovs were driving a 2000 Chevrolet 1500 Express van with global positioning device, and even though Mrs Zolov was full-time navigator, they frequently got lost.

 On one day alone, Mrs Zolov says they made six U-turns. Dr Zolov was frequently forced to stop and ask farmers to verify that this was really a road and not a tractor path through a cornfield. Often, they drove miles without seeing a single sign.

Yet, the Zolovs say that traveling the Lincoln Highway was the most wonderful, amazing, and eye-opening experience of their lives.

The Zolovs Hit The Road

When David Zolov first heard about the Lincoln Highway expedition, he was at a holiday gathering of the Antique Auto Club of America. A fellow enthusiast was talking about a proposed road trip across America, saying that the drivers would be sticking to an old historic route, passing through small towns, traveling and stopping together along the way.

He was immediately taken with the idea, announcing to Mrs Zolov, “I want to do that, too!”

The next six months were spent getting ready for the road trip of a lifetime, as the two were in contact with tour organizers from the Lincoln Highway Association, who had spent five years scouting out the route, visiting the small towns and arranging for accommodations and detailed road maps.

The Zolovs own a vintage 1969 Jaguar XKE roadster, but they decided early on that it could not survive on the trip on that rugged road.

“There were many who actually took their antique vehicles,” said Dr Zolov.

“One guy with a Model A had five flats before he got to Nebraska, where a mechanic was able to fix the wheel.”

The youngest driver was a 20-year-old woman, and the oldest was a 91-year-old man who, Dr Zolov said, “had a lead foot. He really booked it!”

This hardy and determined senior driver turned out to have been an early traveler along the Lincoln Highway. At the age of 16, he had been a member of the Boy Scout troop that helped install the stone markers in 1928.

The Friendliness

Of Small Towns

On departure day, the 50 Lincoln Highway travelers, including the Zolovs, drove their vehicles from Secaucus, N.J., to New York City where, Mrs Zolov said, “They gave us Time Square for an hour.”

Hundreds of onlookers cheered as they set off for their first night’s stop, in Pittsburgh, Penn. The itinerary took them through Mansfield, Ohio, South Bend, Ind., Dixon, Ill., Marshalltown, Iowa, and points further west, each stop more isolated than the last.

“The wonderful thing was, people all along the way already knew about us. There were signs as we rode into town, and they came out with fresh-baked pies, proclamations, and high school bands,” said Mrs Zolov.

“The postmaster in Woodbine, Iowa, had set up card tables in the street, and the women gave us lunch. These people were so down to earth. What you saw was what you got. They were wonderful. I didn’t know that towns like this still existed,” she added.

“We ate more Polish sausage than you can believe,” Dr Zolov said.

He said he was impressed at the simplicity of life in the small towns, where people were standing on corners talking to each other, where there were no traffic lights or parking meters.

“They were all so happy that we came. I think it was the idea that their town was somehow connected to the big coastal cities, and this was important,” he added.

At the end of the one-way journey, when the group finally reached San Francisco, the Zolovs were rewarded with a surprise encounter. A member of the Lincoln Highway Association stepped forward and introduced himself as George L. Clark. He had seen their name on the roster, and noted their Connecticut town had been erroneously identified as “Newton.”

“Are you really from Newtown?” he asked.

When the Zolovs answered yes, it turned out that Mr Clark had grown up here. He graduated from Newtown High School with the Class of 1939. Across 3,300 miles, two longtime Newtowners who had never met before, found each other at the western end of the Lincoln Highway.