Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Mother Roads: Lincoln Highway, Route 66 & the Interstate Highway System

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Mother Roads: Lincoln Highway, Route 66 & the Interstate Highway System · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  Welcome to Automotive History Live, where the stories drive us.
• 0:05
  From the grand lawns of Concours to the icons that shape the road ahead, we
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  celebrate the machines, the makers, and the moments that define automotive history
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  Delighted to present our next program here, Mother Roads: Lincoln Highway, Route
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  66, and the Interstate Highway System.
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  This afternoon, we're diving into the roads that shaped America, the routes
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  that carried families, freight, culture, and imagination across the country.
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  In this panel, three experts will guide us through the story of the
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  Lincoln Highway, Route 66, and the Interstate Highway System, Mother
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  Roads that defined how a nation moves.
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  So joining us today, Matt Anderson, the John and Horace Dodge Curator
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  of Transportation at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
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  We're also joined by Jeff Blair, director of the Indiana Lincoln
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  Highway Association, and John Weiss, chairman of the Illinois
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  Route 66 Preservation Committee.
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  Moderating our discussion today will be Mr.
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  Bob Casey.
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  For those of you new, Bob is a retired curator of transportation
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  at The Henry Ford Museum.
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  We actually have maximum curators of transportation from Henry Ford
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  here on stage in front of you.
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  This is a rare occasion, folks.
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  Soak it all in.
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  Together, we will s- explore how these routes emerged, evolved, and
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  ultimately transformed transportation history in the United States.
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  So please welcome our panel as we hit the open road with Mother
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  Roads: Lincoln Highway, Route 66, and Interstate Highway System.
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  And with that, I'll turn it over to our moderator, Bob
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  Casey, for some opening remarks.
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  Bob?
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  Thank you, Andy.
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  In preparing for this session, it struck me that roads annoy us when they're
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  filled with potholes or when they're in bad condition, and they also annoy
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  us when people are fixing the potholes and the bad conditions, because those
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  repairs interfere with our free movement.
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  But under normal conditions, we pretty much take roads for granted.
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  We just assume that we should have good roads, and they will
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  go wherever we want to go.
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  That has not always been the case.
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  At the dawn of the 20th century, which was also the dawn of the automobile
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  age, United States roads were arguably the worst in the industrialized world.
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  The first census of American roads, which was taken in 1904, classified only
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  about 7% of those roads as surfaced.
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  What that meant was surface meant covered with gravel.
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  The remainder were dirt paths, dry and dusty in the summer, muddy
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  morasses in the rain, and creased with frozen ruts in the winter.
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  But as people adopted automobiles, they began to demand better roads.
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  And in this session, we'll hear some, about some of the fruits of those demands.
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  We'll hear about the first effort to build a transcontinental
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  automobile road, the Lincoln Highway.
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  We'll hear about the road that became a legend, Route 66.
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  And finally, we'll hear about one of the great public works projects in human
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  history, the Interstate Highway System.
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  With that, our first speaker, Jeff Blair, he is the president of the
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  Indiana Lincoln Highway Association, and he is intimately familiar with the
• 3:00
  Lincoln Highway across Indiana because at least once, I think may-maybe more
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  than once, he actually walked that route.
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  So he pretty much knows every inch of it.
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  Thanks for the introduction, and, um, I am Jeff Blair.
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  I'm happy to be here today.
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  I have walked the, the highway in Indiana twice because there are two alignments,
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  and we'll get into that in a little bit.
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  I walked east to west one time and west to east the second time, so.
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  Rather than talk too much today about the history of the Lincoln Highway, Bob
• 3:29
  has talked a little bit about how it evolved around the turn of the century,
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  uh, or talk about the entire Lincoln Highway, 3,300 miles plus, I'm gonna
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  focus a little bit on what I walked the first time I walked in 2011 and show you
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  some pictures of things that we saw along the way and, and maybe it'll whet your
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  appetite a little bit to, uh, some travel along the Lincoln Highway in Indiana.
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  So let's start with, um, a couple of pictures here.
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  One is the guy on the left, or the car on the left is out here on the first floor.
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  It's got Press-O-Lite headlights on it.
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  The founder of the Lincoln Highway was a guy by the name of Carl Fisher,
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  a Hoosier, who got together with a bunch of, uh, his friends in the auto
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  industry in 1912 and started talking about a coast-to-coast rock highway.
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  But the guy on the right then is, in fact, Carl Fisher.
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  You might know him already.
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  He was the developer of the Indiana Lin- Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
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  About 1911, he started that, and then a couple years later,
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  he did the Lincoln Highway.
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  Then later yet, he did the Michigan Road from all the way from Sault Ste.
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  Marie, uh, Michigan, to Miami Beach 'cause he wanted to sell property in
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  Miami Beach Picture of the invitation.
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  First meeting was Indianapolis and, uh, at the Athenaeum.
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  You might know that place on Mass Avenue in downtown Indianapolis, but that's
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  the first meeting that they had in 1912.
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  So there's the route from New York City to San Francisco, but you can
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  see it travels through Indiana.
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  This is the 1913 official route that was commemorated
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  on Halloween 1913, and opened.
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  It's 3,389 miles.
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  This shows the two routes.
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  I mentioned two alignments.
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  The, uh, blue route on the top is the original 1912, 1913 route,
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  and that's the one I walked first.
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  The red line down below it is that in their wisdom, the Lincoln Highway
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  Association decided they could shorten it.
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  Uh, between 1913 and 1928, many states had the route shortened a little bit.
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  So here in Indiana, we recognize both routes as being
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  part of the Lincoln Highway.
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  Starting in the east, that first picture is in Besançon, which is
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  an 1892 church that's still there.
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  One of our projects tried to figure out how could we repurpose
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  that and use it in some fashion.
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  But I- it's a landmark as you come into, uh, Indiana from
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  Van Wert, Ohio, along Old 30.
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  A lot of people think of, uh, the Lincoln Highway as Route 30, and in some places
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  it is, but in Indiana it's also Route 33.
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  It's also Route 2.
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  It's also Lincoln Way East and West.
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  It's got a lot of names, the original Lincoln Highway.
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  The other picture is a place you can stand in Zulu, uh, Indiana, and see
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  three different versions or three different routes of the Lincoln Highway.
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  The original route, a second route that kinda smoothed out a curve,
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  and then the modern US 30, which is a little further in the distance.
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  In Fort Wayne, you come on through New Haven and you get to Fort Wayne.
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  Uh, here's a couple of pictures from Fort Wayne.
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  There's many things to see there 'cause it's the largest city in
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  Indiana on the Lincoln Highway.
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  But Sidney's Diner has been around since the '50s, and it's moved a couple times,
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  been packed up and moved because downtown Fort Wayne keeps making changes and
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  improvements in parking and all that.
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  But it's still there and it's a, there are a lot of diners along the Lincoln
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  Highway, and they're fun to find and fun to eat in and fun to enjoy.
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  And the other picture is a plaque that's on the bridge across the
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  St. Marys River, and it talks about the mileage to San Francisco
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  and back to New York, and so it's commemorating the Lincoln Highway there.
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  The original one went on Wells Street, which you can see when you
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  stand on this, the Harrison Street Bridge, and you look to your west,
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  you can see the original bridge in the distance, but now it's a footbridge.
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  A little further on, you can see yours truly on the, on the left side.
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  Uncle Sam is buried in Miriam, Indiana, and so it's fun to go find his grave.
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  I'll point it out to you if you'd like to go find it.
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  And then there's a great bed and breakfast, uh, a little further on,
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  close to Ligonier, near Kimmel, Indiana, small town on US thirty-three, and,
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  uh, I've stayed there a couple times.
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  It's a beautiful place to stay.
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  Two more pictures.
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  Picture on your left is the only brick section on the Lincoln Highway
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  in Indiana, and so it's worth seeing.
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  It's right next to US thirty-three, a little turnoff for it.
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  It says Old thirty-three on it.
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  I hope they always keep it 'cause there are three or four houses
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  on, and they'll hopefully will be able to restore it and keep it.
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  And then the other picture is, uh, of, of downtown Ligonier.
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  They have over twenty murals on various buildings down there,
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  so they've done a great job of preserving history in that way.
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  As you get a little closer to Goshen, there's two pictures of the Benton Cabins.
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  They were built in the nineteen twenties.
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  These were the kinds of places that people stayed in the twenties and thirties
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  along the highways, spent the night.
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  A gentleman across the street has restored a couple of them to…
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  and is happy if you knock on the door to show you around.
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  It's in Benton, Indiana, just close to Goshen.
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  If you've ever been to Goshen, you might have seen the police station
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  downtown on the corner of, uh, Main Street and Lincoln Avenue.
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  Uh, it was built in the nineteen thirties.
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  You could see a mile in each direction, and so it kind of protected the banks,
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  and it was manned by police people until the nineteen sixties sometime
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  before they stopped using it that way.
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  It's now preserved by the Historical Society.
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  And the other is an old bag factory that goes back to nineteen oh five.
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  It's also been repurposed.
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  It's now a, an art center for a lot of different shops and artisans
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  Moving on through Elkhart and Osceola, you get into Mishawaka.
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  Here's a couple pictures of Mishawaka.
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  On the right is the Bonnie Doon Restaurant, which some of you may know.
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  I think there were a chain of them in this area at one time.
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  I have to go in there and tell them every once in a while, "You're not
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  on Route 66," because they got a lot of Route 66 stuff on it, and
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  make sure that they're displaying the Lincoln Highway stuff instead.
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  But they're close, and they're really good people.
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  A little further on is the, is the Beiger Mansion.
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  It's been there since 1903 to 1908 it was built.
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  It's had a variety of different owners over time.
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  Beautiful, beautiful architecture.
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  A few years ago, we were h- had the opportunity to dedicate a sign downtown
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  at Washington and Michigan that's, uh, dedicated to both the Lincoln Highway
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  and the Dixie Highway as they cross through South Bend right downtown.
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  And so we were part of that process when that sign was dedicated.
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  Move on a little further, we go through New Carlisle.
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  We get out to Rolling Prairie.
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  At the intersection of Route 20 and 6, where they crisscross
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  there, 20 and 2, I guess, there's a place that used to be called Bob's
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  Bar-B-Q for a long, long time.
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  Busloads of people.
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  Uh, that-- It was one of the main roads into Chicago from the east, and
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  it sold steaks and everything else.
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  They had cabins out in back and all that.
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  And so that picture on your left is a picture of the old Bob's Bar-B-Q.
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  Been repurposed over the last fifteen, twenty years or purchased and, and it's
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  still a fine restaurant called Jenny Rae's, and you should stop there sometime.
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  Get some fresh pie or whatever.
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  Wonderful place.
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  By the way, I could show you thirty more pictures.
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  In every town, we've got six or eight of these.
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  I'm just trying to show you some of the highlights.
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  Past the Pinhook Church, goes back to 1847, right on Route 2 going, uh, west.
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  And near Westville, you get off of Route 2 onto Old Route 2, or
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  the original Route 2, if you will.
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  And there are three little different turnouts along that route.
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  One of them goes through a, a single-lane bridge like this that
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  lately has been washed out a little bit because there's so much rain.
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  But it's a wonderful, beautiful little place.
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  And as you drive down it, you can get a picture in your mind of what it must
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  have been like driving in the 1920s.
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  In Lake County, we have park called the Deep River County Park.
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  Beautiful park.
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  They play old-time baseball there.
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  It's got bunch of trails and all that kind of stuff, a great little
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  working mill, water mill, gristmill.
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  And on the right is a bridge just as you enter Schererville along 73rd Avenue.
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  Again, none of these are on Route 30.
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  These are on the Lincoln Highway, which is just down the road from the, uh, Route 30.
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  Little further on, we have what's called the Ideal Section.
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  In the early 1920s, the brainchild to have a road that could be an example
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  for the rest of the world was built, and it's over in Lake County in the
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  town of Dyer, almost at the end of the, end of the road in Indiana.
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  So you can stop there and take a look at this, read the sign.
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  There's also a, uh, a plaque to the S- the Sauk Indians because a lot of our
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  route follows the Sauk Trail that went from Detroit to Rockford, Illinois.
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  It has a, a 1928 marker, which I'll talk about a little bit more.
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  There's a lot of things at that display.
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  I will tell you now, if you do wanna go see it, I urge it.
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  It's kinda cool.
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  But park comfortably somewhere else.
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  Don't park across the street from it 'cause you're gonna be crossing
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  a very busy US 30 at that point in time, also the Lincoln Highway.
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  And it's also got a dedication to it to, uh, Henry Ostermann, who was one
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  of the very early founders and field secretaries who died in the early 1920s
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  at Iowa driving the Lincoln Highway.
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  So the, the membership at that point in time built a, a memorial to him.
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  So all of that is at that one site.
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  Talked earlier about the shorter route going through, instead of coming up
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  to Goshen and Elkhart and South Bend, a southern route that does follow
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  today's Route 30 a little more closely, but is not really Route 30 either.
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  It's old Route 30, Business Route 30, and it goes through Columbia City and
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  Warsaw and Plymouth and that area.
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  So it's between Fort Wayne and Valparaiso.
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  Now, I do wanna… This kind of is a bridge to Matt's talk,
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  I think, a little while ago.
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  In 1919, one of the highlights of the Lincoln Highway, this is a
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  national statement, was a caravan that crossed the United States virtually
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  almost all on the Lincoln Highway.
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  And part of that entourage was a second lieutenant by the name of Dwight David
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  Eisenhower, who, uh, a little later, we may hear his name again, was really
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  the father of the Interstate System.
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  But they followed the Lincoln Highway.
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  We've read his diary, and there are books out called After Ike and
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  what that impact was and so on.
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  So I wanted to throw that in there 'cause I think it's a bridge to
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  what we'll talk about in a minute.
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  This is our sign.
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  I s- snuck one in over here, too, so you can see the size of it there.
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  But it's … We have put up 220 of these signs across the state, so you can follow,
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  literally follow the Lincoln Highway in either direction just by following our
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  signs, uh, unless somebody's tore one down or run into it with a snowplow, in which
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  case I gotta get out there and change it.
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  You know, early on it was about getting better roads, as Bob talked about.
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  We gotta have better roads if we're gonna drive e- any sort of distance.
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  Today, it's more about history.
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  It's about education.
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  It's about tourism.
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  Important to us to do signs.
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  It's important to us to do … Perhaps you saw a banner that was in the lobby
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  as you came in that's dedicated to the history of the Lincoln Highway through
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  South Bend, and we put up five of those across the state in various places, and
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  we call them modern-day control stations.
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  So back in the day, there were control stations where people could stop and
• 13:46
  find out what's going on ahead, where they could get a good meal, where they
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  could do those sorts of things and understand, because they didn't have maps.
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  Rand McNally wasn't around yet.
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  So today we, just to help advertise and create tourism and, and support
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  our local communities, we've created, uh, modern-day control stations, and
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  one of them is the Studebaker Museum.
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  So thank you.
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  I, I raced through, raced across the state as fast as I could, and I guess there's
• 14:09
  open for questions for a few minutes.
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  Does anybody have any questions?
• 14:15
  Where is that located, the, the one section with the
• 14:16
  original- Oh, the Ideal Section.
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  The Ideal Section.
• 14:17
  Okay.
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  It's in the town of Dyer, which is the last town in Indiana in Lake
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  County on Route 30, Lincoln Highway.
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  That's where it is.
• 14:26
  It's on the south side of the road.
• 14:28
  Do you know Tiebel's Restaurant out there at the intersection of 41 and 30?
• 14:32
  Yeah.
• 14:32
  It's a, a mile from there.
• 14:34
  It's west of Tiebel, just across 41.
• 14:35
  Is that the brick building?
• 14:40
  Actually, Brick Road Oh, yes, that's very close to Ligonier,
• 14:43
  which is kind of central.
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  It's on US 33 just south of Ligonier.
• 14:47
  Did Lincoln Highway cross- Yes … 66?
• 14:51
  Well, that's a great question, and you may hear from John on this, too.
• 14:54
  The answer is yes.
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  Actually, they run together for about three miles, and then Route 66 heads
• 15:01
  off to the southwest, and Lincoln Highway continues w- virtually west.
• 15:05
  So they are together, though, in s- just south of Chicago for about three miles.
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  So my grandfather was a contractor on 66 in the Ozarks of Missouri,
• 15:17
  so I'm glad I didn't miss the 66.
• 15:18
  Oh, anyway.
• 15:18
  He's up next.
• 15:20
  Uh, I forget, what was the Dixie Highway?
• 15:22
  Uh, the Dixie Highway was another road founded, fathered by Carl
• 15:26
  Fisher shortly after the Lincoln Highway, and it ran from northern
• 15:30
  Michigan all the way to Miami Beach.
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  He was one of the first developers in Miami, and so I saw it as, uh, this is
• 15:38
  just me talking, I don't, I don't have any proof of this, that Carl wanted
• 15:41
  to get some people down there to buy property and join me at Miami Beach.
• 15:45
  And so he, you know, helped create a, a highway that way.
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  We had basically one route, maybe a couple of routes over the years
• 15:51
  east to west, but he had just about any road going north and south could
• 15:55
  become part of the Dixie Highway.
• 15:58
  Is there any more?
• 15:58
  Yes, ma'am.
• 16:01
  What was the length of it?
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  3,389 miles.
• 16:03
  How much of it, meaning of Route 66 were some of the longest-
• 16:12
  How much is of the Lincoln Highway is still intact?
• 16:14
  Oh.
• 16:14
  I guess navigable, by car.
• 16:15
  Well, that's a, that's a hard, that's a hard question to answer.
• 16:18
  If I had to guess, it'd be 20%, because as time's gone on, it- we'll
• 16:22
  talk about the Interstate System.
• 16:24
  Of course, the Interstate System didn't eliminate those roads, but it changed a
• 16:28
  lot of the driving patterns obviously.
• 16:30
  Some of those roads have been paved over.
• 16:31
  Some of them have been moved a mile or two or three.
• 16:35
  Like Route 30 used to be about a mile south of where it is today when it first
• 16:39
  was opened, but now it's a little further north, and they bypass some towns, just
• 16:44
  like the Interstate System bypassed towns.
• 16:46
  I'm just estimating.
• 16:47
  I don't know if anybody else in our group has an estimate.
• 16:50
  20, 25, 30% is exactly the same road as it was in 1912 or 1913.
• 16:56
  Thank you, Jeff.
• 16:57
  That's terrific.
• 16:58
  I think we ought to move on now.
• 17:00
  I hope we'll have some time for more questions at the end.
• 17:03
  Can I have one more?
• 17:04
  Yeah.
• 17:04
  One statement.
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  We've got a couple brochures here.
• 17:06
  If anybody wants to know more about the Lincoln Highway, interested in joining
• 17:10
  our group, either nationally or locally or whatever, we have some brochures
• 17:13
  out here on the table, so grab one on your way out and we'd be appreciative.
• 17:17
  Our next speaker is John Weis, who is, has been the chairman of the Illinois
• 17:22
  Route 66 Preservation Committee since 1993, and he's received the John Steinbeck
• 17:28
  Award for preservation accomplishments, and, uh, he is the author of the only
• 17:32
  travel guide to Illinois Route 66.
• 17:36
  So John Weis and the legendary highway.
• 17:40
  I'm gonna jump around a lot.
• 17:41
  I don't have a lot of pictures.
• 17:42
  In fact, I only have one.
• 17:44
  I'm known as the storyteller, so you just have to kinda listen more than watch.
• 17:48
  And I've gathered together some of the things we normally talk about, but we'll
• 17:53
  start with the basics first of all, just have to have a little bit about the road.
• 17:57
  Everyone's heard of 66.
• 17:59
  By the way, it's pronounced route or route, either way you want.
• 18:02
  Paul McCartney asked the same question, which is right, and, uh, we had to
• 18:06
  kind of explain the whole thing to him.
• 18:08
  But it no longer exists.
• 18:10
  It was decommissioned, taken off of maps June 27th of 1985.
• 18:15
  It's very well known for three main reasons.
• 18:18
  The book or the movie Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.
• 18:21
  He called Route 66 the Mother Road in his book.
• 18:26
  It was about the Depression Era, Oklahoma Dust Bowl, travels to
• 18:31
  California for new life, new hope.
• 18:33
  The TV show, Route 66, it glamorized highway travel.
• 18:38
  It, it w- was a 1960s adventure show starring Buzz and Tod in their Corvette.
• 18:43
  That's how people remember it.
• 18:45
  It starred Martin Milner for the f- four years and George Maharis
• 18:48
  for two and Glenn Corbett for two.
• 18:51
  It made 118 episodes of that TV show, cornball as can be, but only
• 18:58
  two were ever done on Route 66.
• 19:01
  And of course, the song Get Your Kicks on Route 66.
• 19:05
  And one other just little piece of trivia that I put on the bottom of this,
• 19:08
  it's interesting to note that Route 66 was originally known as Route 60.
• 19:13
  It wasn't supposed to be 66.
• 19:16
  Well, last year, I participated in a media event for the state police.
• 19:21
  They asked me to give a talk about the history of Route 66.
• 19:25
  They also said to keep it under four minutes.
• 19:30
  Sure.
• 19:30
  One hundred-year history of the Mother Road in four minutes.
• 19:33
  Now, that was a challenge as I saw it.
• 19:36
  I thought you would enjoy hearing that short presentation.
• 19:39
  It contains a few interesting pieces of information, but the ironic part about
• 19:43
  it, you know, when they came up with the Interstate Highway System, it was
• 19:46
  supposed to be faster, safer travel.
• 19:48
  The reason the state police were doing that, they wanted to get
• 19:51
  people o- off the highway, onto 66 for slower travel and safer.
• 19:57
  That was the goal.
• 19:58
  Give them a reason to get off the interstate 'cause there were too
• 20:03
  many accidents, people getting hurt.
• 20:04
  So I will read you my four minutes of 100 year of 66.
• 20:10
  Well, I've been actively involved in 66 for 35 years, and I've
• 20:14
  written the only guidebook exclusively Route 66 in Illinois.
• 20:18
  Let me give you a brief, very brief history lesson about the historic road.
• 20:24
  Route 66 was not built.
• 20:27
  It was created.
• 20:28
  Many towns and areas had paved pieces of road, but they did
• 20:32
  not travel from town to town.
• 20:35
  What they needed was a continuous paved road attaching each town.
• 20:40
  This was accomplished by connecting already paved pieces
• 20:42
  of roads with additional paving.
• 20:45
  Because of the way it evolved, it was a dangerous road to drive.
• 20:49
  It had many hairpin turns and curves.
• 20:52
  It was only 16 feet wide, but it provided a hard road from Chicago to St.
• 20:57
  Louis, a distance of 300 miles, and in those early days, that was remarkable.
• 21:05
  Originally, Route 66 had a nickname.
• 21:07
  It was Bloody 66.
• 21:09
  Slowly, it evolved into a planned road.
• 21:12
  The dangerous aspects were eliminated.
• 21:15
  It was straightened and widened with gentle curves.
• 21:18
  New alignments were created.
• 21:20
  That's the Route 66 we travel today.
• 21:22
  The basic goal of this program is to get travelers off the expressway
• 21:26
  and onto historic Route 66.
• 21:29
  In order to do that, you have to not only stress the safety aspect, but
• 21:33
  you have to provide the answer to the question that folks will ask,
• 21:37
  "And what else is in it for me?"
• 21:40
  A question often asked is, why are 60% of travelers on
• 21:44
  Route 66 from other countries?
• 21:47
  It's because their research shows them that Route 66 is a mixture
• 21:51
  of pleasure and adventure, and it's also a taste of Americana
• 21:56
  that they can actually step into.
• 21:59
  It's interesting to note that the Route 66 has been declared by the Lonely
• 22:02
  Planet Trail Organization as one of the 10 best road trips in the world.
• 22:08
  The other nine are in other countries Think about it.
• 22:12
  Route 66 travels from a great lake to an ocean.
• 22:16
  It passes through deserts and mountains.
• 22:18
  There's farmland and forests and big cities and small towns, and each
• 22:23
  area has its own identity and charm.
• 22:25
  Yeah, Route 66 has it all.
• 22:28
  The magic of Route 66 is that it can take you back to a simpler way of life.
• 22:32
  You can even pull over and smell the roses, and you cannot
• 22:35
  do that on the expressway.
• 22:37
  Folks can even talk to people who are really glad that you stopped for a visit.
• 22:42
  Outstanding food and a feeling of well-being are a way of life.
• 22:46
  By the way, ninety-five percent of all attractions on Route
• 22:50
  66 in Illinois are free.
• 22:53
  We have a saying in our preservation group that goes like this: "What
• 22:56
  you are experiencing and enjoying today is the history of yesterday,
• 23:02
  but what we do today will become the history of tomorrow." We like to say
• 23:07
  that life begins at the off-ramp.
• 23:09
  Route 66 is that off-ramp.
• 23:12
  My wife passed away sixteen years ago, and she used to call
• 23:15
  Route 66 a string of pearls.
• 23:18
  She felt that each town was like a pearl.
• 23:21
  The road was like a string that attached each pearl.
• 23:25
  She saw that the road wasn't the magic.
• 23:28
  It was the pearls, the people, and the places that Route 66 took you to.
• 23:33
  I've never forgotten that perfect observation.
• 23:37
  All right, what actually is preservation?
• 23:39
  Preservation takes many forms.
• 23:41
  The size, scope, and historical significance is virtually unlimited.
• 23:47
  Essentially, preservation is the link that joins the past
• 23:50
  to the present for the future.
• 23:52
  Preservation should always emit a sense of time and place.
• 23:57
  Preservation projects can be a source of pride for a community and also
• 24:01
  be a source of tourism dollars.
• 24:03
  But mostly, it is a way to provide future generations with a glimpse into the
• 24:08
  daily life from the not-so-distant past.
• 24:12
  Written words can bring awareness of this time.
• 24:15
  However, when a structure or place is combined with the words, people's
• 24:21
  imaginations will come alive.
• 24:23
  For a brief moment, folks can be transported back to a
• 24:26
  place they'd only heard of.
• 24:28
  Preservation puts you there to stand, see, feel, and be where others were before you.
• 24:35
  All of us in the Illinois Route 66 Preservation Committee are
• 24:38
  proud of our accomplishments.
• 24:40
  Do we succeed in every attempt?
• 24:42
  Absolutely not.
• 24:44
  The most important thing is that we try.
• 24:46
  Creative thinking combined with a can-do attitude will
• 24:50
  succeed more often than fail.
• 24:53
  And another form of preservation is the stories from the road.
• 24:57
  They are the true heart and soul of each place.
• 25:00
  I've saved many of these fascinating stories.
• 25:03
  I didn't try to verify any of them.
• 25:05
  I just wrote them as I heard them.
• 25:07
  True, some of them may have become what I call flavored over the years, but there's
• 25:13
  always an element of truth in every story.
• 25:15
  So yeah, I just put this little book together, but it's a
• 25:17
  preservation story is what it is.
• 25:20
  And now I'll give you example of that, stories that cannot be lost
• 25:23
  to time, but must be preserved.
• 25:26
  My favorite story, and there's a whole bunch of them.
• 25:29
  About twenty-five years ago, I was fortunate enough to meet a lady
• 25:32
  by the name of Lorraine Merrick.
• 25:34
  She passed away, uh, three years ago at the age of one hundred and two.
• 25:38
  What Lorraine provided was priceless.
• 25:42
  She gave me two photographs of her when she was around ten or eleven years old.
• 25:47
  They were taken on the roof of a restaurant called Hodak's
• 25:50
  that was owned by her uncle.
• 25:52
  In the background of both photos is the Whoopee Auto Coaster ride.
• 25:57
  These are the only two known photos of that attraction.
• 26:01
  Lorraine was able to explain about this oddity.
• 26:04
  The photos also clearly show the following.
• 26:07
  The best way to describe it is if you think of a roller coaster.
• 26:11
  It was a very large wooden structure in the shape of a rambling oval.
• 26:15
  It had many hills and curves.
• 26:18
  It was about twelve feet wide with two-by-four railings, and for ten cents
• 26:23
  you could drive your own car on it.
• 26:25
  I have an actual ticket for this ride.
• 26:28
  Lorraine, uh, said later the owners wanted to be able to make use of the area
• 26:32
  inside of the oval, so they put in the Stop and Sock Golf Ball Driving Range.
• 26:40
  Now, can you picture this?
• 26:42
  Cars driving on the Whoopee ride and others hitting golf balls.
• 26:46
  I don't think you could open a business like that this time.
• 26:49
  Folks, you can't make up a story like this, but we have to save it.
• 26:53
  Wouldn't it be terrible to be lost to time?
• 26:55
  Remember that we have two photos, a ticket, and an eyewitness.
• 27:00
  This is the ultimate oddity of Route 66, and I'll show you that photo.
• 27:05
  I had it blown up.
• 27:06
  There's a car right there You, you know, if you didn't have the picture,
• 27:12
  you couldn't believe it, could you?
• 27:13
  I mean, really, you had to make that up.
• 27:16
  This is only one of so many of them.
• 27:18
  We cannot lose them.
• 27:19
  This is preservation.
• 27:21
  Everybody thinks about buildings and structures and roads.
• 27:24
  No, this is probably more important than the actual structures themselves.
• 27:30
  We can save buildings and stuff, but the stories kind of fade away.
• 27:34
  This one here is, I got the proof because turn this around, there's
• 27:38
  her signature on the back of it.
• 27:41
  Okay.
• 27:42
  Any questions from anybody from what I talked about or anything
• 27:46
  about 66 that I can help you with?
• 27:48
  Where was that at?
• 27:50
  It's in Lyons, Illinois.
• 27:51
  Lyons, Illinois, yeah.
• 27:53
  Right now, of course, there's no signs left of it, remnants of it at all.
• 27:57
  But like I said, there's no pictures, and all of a sudden she gave me those, and
• 28:00
  she really had no idea how excited I was when I saw that because of the background.
• 28:05
  It never meant anything to her.
• 28:07
  She grew up with it.
• 28:08
  Isn't that amazing?
• 28:09
  St. Louis is my other
• 28:18
  Springfield, Illinois has three alignments through it.
• 28:20
  And as I said in there, that it started out by being created, so
• 28:24
  it had to go here, there, jog all over the place just to attach it.
• 28:28
  Oh, well, here's a paved piece.
• 28:30
  Here's a paved piece.
• 28:31
  So they attached it.
• 28:32
  I mean, it was really haphazard.
• 28:33
  It became 66, but then they started to straighten it out and get those hairpin
• 28:38
  curves straightened out, and things that they found out about building highways.
• 28:42
  So it w- it was finally built, not created, but it started
• 28:46
  out as being a creation.
• 28:48
  But 300 miles of continuous paved road, that was pretty remarkable in its day.
• 28:55
  Did it start out as a federal highway?
• 28:57
  No, it just started out as convenience.
• 28:59
  I mean, it was … You really go down, you follow it down, it starts
• 29:02
  out with the buffalo or bison.
• 29:03
  It actually starts with the Indians, following them, and
• 29:06
  it's got the telegraph poles.
• 29:07
  Then it became the railroad, and everybody followed the same
• 29:10
  alignment for the most part.
• 29:12
  But no, it wasn't really as you think of roads today.
• 29:15
  When did it get the federal designation as Route 66?
• 29:18
  November 11th, 1926.
• 29:21
  But as I said, it was originally called Route 60.
• 29:24
  So in 1926, it was Route 60.
• 29:27
  At the end of '26, it changed.
• 29:30
  All 1926 maps are wrong.
• 29:33
  If you're a collector, find a '26 map and save it.
• 29:36
  It's very collectible.
• 29:37
  So the first time it appeared on a map was 1927, so their 100th
• 29:42
  birthday's coming November 11th, yes sir. At the end of the presentation,
• 29:48
  can you read that photograph-
• 29:50
  Well, you, I just, I got this here, and all I really did on this other
• 29:53
  one, I didn't know how much space.
• 29:55
  This is actually a map, a 1926 map, and it shows the 60 on it.
• 29:59
  But you can come up and see that, absolutely.
• 30:02
  Absolutely I have a, a Route 66 memory.
• 30:05
  In 1952, my parents took a family trip from Northwest Indiana to
• 30:11
  Oklahoma City, and we went Route 66 across the Mississippi at St. Louis.
• 30:16
  At that time, you went across what was called the Chain of Rocks
• 30:19
  Bridge, two-lane bridge across the river, and it wasn't straight.
• 30:24
  Yeah, there was actually an angle.
• 30:25
  It bent partway across.
• 30:28
  As a little kid, I was not a fan of bridges anyway, and that bridge
• 30:31
  scared the daylights out of me.
• 30:33
  To see that thing, we're driving along, and I'm thinking, "No, the
• 30:36
  bridge takes off at that angle." Fortunately, when I, we went across
• 30:39
  it the first time, I was happy to get across, and I didn't think about the
• 30:43
  fact that coming back, we're gonna go acro- across it the other way again.
• 30:46
  And that bridge still exists, but it's a pedestrian bridge now.
• 30:50
  And I'd feel comfortable crossing it as a pedestrian, but as a little kid,
• 30:54
  it scared the daylights out of me.
• 30:56
  We have an, a motor tour every year of the Route 66 Association of Illinois, and
• 31:00
  most of the time, we do have a crossing.
• 31:03
  So you can drive it.
• 31:04
  I've driven across it many times.
• 31:06
  But it has to be arranged, and there's like a $10 fee on each car, but it's
• 31:10
  well worth it, by gosh, to be able to… And in the day, it was a toll road.
• 31:14
  But yeah, that, it's at one and one-tenth mile long.
• 31:17
  It's really cool to do that.
• 31:19
  Okay.
• 31:19
  Thank you, John.
• 31:20
  Our last speaker here is Matt Anderson, who is the John and Horace Dodge Curator
• 31:25
  of Transportation at The Henry Ford.
• 31:28
  He oversees nearly 300 motor vehicles, but also railroad locomotives, rolling
• 31:34
  stock, aircraft, bicycles, motorcycles, even the motorized roller skates, I think.
• 31:38
  Yes.
• 31:39
  So Matt is gonna talk about the Interstate Highway System, which at the beginning
• 31:44
  of my opening remarks, I said, "You know, we tend not to appreciate our highways.
• 31:48
  We take them for granted." The Interstate Highway System is on
• 31:51
  a scale of the Roman aqueducts.
• 31:54
  This is one of the great public works projects in human history.
• 31:59
  Roman aqueducts, pyramids, you name it.
• 32:02
  This is it, and it's, it's something we drive every day.
• 32:05
  We take it for granted.
• 32:06
  We don't appreciate it.
• 32:08
  It is just an amazing accomplishment.
• 32:10
  Thanks, Bob.
• 32:11
  I appreciate that.
• 32:12
  I'll, uh, I'll go one step further.
• 32:13
  I'll go out on a limb and say that it's more of a defining achievement for the
• 32:16
  U.S. in the 20th century than the moon landing, even though that was more buzz,
• 32:20
  uh, a fancier achievement for sure.
• 32:22
  But what the federal Interstate Highway System has done for us over the years
• 32:25
  cannot be compared with anything else.
• 32:27
  And we were saying, inspired by Dwight Eisenhower, his signature
• 32:30
  project, in fact, that's the formal name of the Interstate Highways.
• 32:33
  You've probably seen the signs here and there, Dwight D. Eisenhower Interstate
• 32:36
  Highway System with the five stars based on his rank as Supreme Commander
• 32:39
  of the Allied Forces in World War II.
• 32:41
  The system initially as envisioned, 41,000 miles built to a consistent high
• 32:46
  standard across the system, limited access, and inspired by Eisenhower's
• 32:50
  1919 convoy in part, also inspired by developments in Germany with the Autobahn
• 32:55
  limited access highways, and inspired by developments right here in the U.S.
• 32:59
  as well, things like the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
• 33:01
  which we'll talk about here in a few moments.
• 33:03
  And since we were talking about US 66, I should point out that this
• 33:06
  was a concern among the planners of the Interstate Highway System.
• 33:08
  There would be confusion in these road numbers.
• 33:10
  So when we think of the US Highway System, it starts with 1 on the East
• 33:14
  Coast and goes to US 101 out on the West Coast, and the, uh, east-west roads,
• 33:18
  US 2 up in the UP of Michigan heading out west to the Pacific Northwest, down
• 33:22
  to US 66 in the American Southwest.
• 33:24
  They just mirror imaged that with the numbers in the Interstate Highway System.
• 33:27
  So you have I-95 out in the east.
• 33:29
  You have I-5 in the west, or I-10, I should say, down, uh, paralleling in
• 33:33
  some cases the old US 66, and then I-96 in Michigan, the highest two-digit route
• 33:38
  east-west, which is also an intrastate interstate, which is another story
• 33:41
  altogether, but one of their concerns.
• 33:43
  And the original 41,000-mile system was completed as originally envisioned in
• 33:47
  1992, and to Bob's point, the largest public works project in history.
• 33:51
  I thought it would be interesting to talk a little bit about how those roads were
• 33:54
  financed because that brings the story to the present day and issues that we
• 33:58
  were dealing with right now as we speak.
• 34:00
  So instead of tolls, there was a tax instituted on motor vehicles, tires,
• 34:05
  and fuel, the idea being a user tax paid for by those who are getting the most
• 34:09
  use out of these interstate highways.
• 34:11
  Additional annual fees would be charged to truck operators as well, who were putting
• 34:15
  most of the wear and tear on the roads.
• 34:17
  And all of this money would be funneled into a federal highway trust fund.
• 34:20
  Later on, some small portions of that fund were used not just for road
• 34:23
  construction and maintenance, but for urban mass transit projects as well.
• 34:27
  And the deal was that the federal government would pay 90% of the
• 34:30
  cost for new highway construction.
• 34:32
  States would be left to pick up the remaining 10% for the portions of
• 34:36
  those roads within their borders.
• 34:37
  There were some existing toll roads, like the Pennsylvania Turnpike, like the
• 34:40
  Illinois Toll Road, or the, uh, Indiana Toll Road, for example, right here, that
• 34:44
  would be merged into the system, and they would be allowed to keep charging tolls
• 34:48
  on those routes as a part of the deal.
• 34:50
  And we were just talking about numbering schemes.
• 34:52
  One of my favorite coincidences in the Interstate Highway System is that
• 34:55
  the Pennsylvania Turnpike was folded into the system, and that became I-76.
• 35:00
  We just celebrated our 250th birthday last week, so 1776,
• 35:05
  I-76, entirely coincidental.
• 35:06
  Also coincidental that I-76 runs through Colorado, which became a state in 1876
• 35:11
  and is the Centennial State, so fun trivia for you to take home there.
• 35:15
  Most of the system is, was, and as it remains today, toll-free.
• 35:19
  Now, when you think about this fuel tax financing system, it made
• 35:22
  perfect sense in the mid-1950s.
• 35:24
  Very sound.
• 35:24
  We're looking at a 1956 Chevy Bel Air over here.
• 35:27
  Cars and engines were big like this car.
• 35:29
  This '56 Chevy has the V8 in it.
• 35:31
  It's got the Powerglide two-speed automatic transmission.
• 35:33
  Would've gotten somewhere around 14 miles to the gallon, which means lots of
• 35:36
  trips to the pump, lots of money going into that federal highway trust fund.
• 35:40
  Well, jump ahead about 20 years to the oil crisis of the 1970s, when
• 35:44
  all of a sudden everybody wants smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.
• 35:47
  We're looking at a 1978 Dodge Omni here with a four-cylinder engine,
• 35:51
  three-speed automatic, about 28 miles per gallon, so twice as good on fuel
• 35:55
  economy as the '56 Chevy, and that hits the, uh, trust fund on its bottom line.
• 36:00
  And of course, by the early 2000s in this, uh, millennium, environmental
• 36:04
  concerns were now a factor as well, in addition to just simple fuel economy.
• 36:07
  Hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius became popular.
• 36:10
  These were cars that were averaging 40 miles a gallon or more.
• 36:14
  And of course, electric cars, which are becoming more
• 36:16
  popular, use no fuel whatsoever.
• 36:19
  So seriously, there had to be something done about the Highway Trust Fund,
• 36:23
  and Congress actually for the first time had to transfer outside money
• 36:26
  into the trust fund to keep it solvent in two thousand and eight.
• 36:30
  They had to do that again in two thousand and twenty-one.
• 36:33
  Undoubtedly, it will be have to be done again before too long.
• 36:36
  This funding gap came at just the perfect time.
• 36:38
  I say that sarcastically because, of course, by the mid-twenty tens, portions
• 36:42
  of the Interstate Highway System were now sixty years old, and as we talk today,
• 36:46
  they're now approaching seventy years old.
• 36:48
  And at, at that time, something like eighteen hundred bridges were rated
• 36:51
  structurally deficient, which is one of those terms engineers throw around.
• 36:55
  Sounds scarier than it is.
• 36:56
  The bridges are still safe to cross.
• 36:58
  It's just they require additional maintenance and monitoring.
• 37:01
  So things are beginning to outlive, say, useful life, which is why we're seeing
• 37:05
  all of this road construction everywhere.
• 37:07
  At the same time, of course, maintenance costs are climbing, right?
• 37:09
  The cost of labor, the cost of materials certainly hasn't gone down
• 37:12
  over the past sixty or seventy years.
• 37:14
  Now, it was easy enough to raise taxes in the nineteen fifties, and generally
• 37:18
  speaking, whatever the project is, it's always easier to raise money for new
• 37:22
  construction than ongoing maintenance of something that exists, right?
• 37:25
  And the enthusiasm for the Interstate Highway System was very high in
• 37:29
  the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties as people were seeing new
• 37:32
  miles of road built and experiencing those benefits for the first time.
• 37:35
  But as the system matured, that enthusiasm began to wane.
• 37:39
  We must now find new funding sources.
• 37:42
  There are a number of proposed solutions out there.
• 37:44
  They all, of course, have their pros and cons.
• 37:46
  One of the easiest ideas is to simply raise the fuel tax.
• 37:49
  Now, I am fifty years old, just turned fifty back in April.
• 37:53
  The last time the federal fuel tax was raised, I was in high school.
• 37:57
  So that gives you an idea of how long it has been.
• 38:00
  That was in nineteen ninety-three when it was raised to eighteen
• 38:03
  point four cents a gallon.
• 38:04
  And yes, it is a fixed figure.
• 38:06
  It is not a percentage.
• 38:07
  It is not indexed to inflation, so that has not changed in
• 38:10
  more than thirty years now.
• 38:12
  Obviously, an increase would be simple because it works within our
• 38:15
  existing tax collection method, so that would seem to be the obvious choice.
• 38:19
  However, any change to that fuel tax requires action by Congress, and we
• 38:23
  know how popular tax increases are with voters and with Congress in general.
• 38:28
  So it's not been an easy sell.
• 38:30
  Again, taxes were much easier to sell to the public in the nineteen
• 38:33
  fifties when the benefits of the Interstate Highway System were fresh
• 38:36
  and more obvious on everyone's mind.
• 38:38
  Also, we should point out that modern projects tend to focus around maintenance
• 38:41
  and any additional miles that are built.
• 38:43
  The maintenance and the additional miles tend to happen in urban areas, which
• 38:46
  is further exacerbated by the classic urban versus rural divide, right?
• 38:49
  Folks living outside the cities not necessarily eager to pay higher taxes
• 38:53
  to support those living in the cities.
• 38:56
  The idea of tolls has been floated.
• 38:58
  Obviously, there are some existing segments of tolled interstate highway
• 39:01
  system, and, uh, they do work, obviously very well based on users.
• 39:05
  It's about as straightforward as it gets.
• 39:07
  And, uh, we now live in an age of electronic toll collecting technologies.
• 39:10
  You don't have to throw your quarter into the basket anymore.
• 39:13
  You just drive right on through, and it reads the meter hanging
• 39:15
  up by your rear view mirror.
• 39:16
  But, uh, the problem is we are notoriously toll-resistant in the
• 39:20
  United States, especially when we've been driving so much of that system
• 39:24
  toll-free for the last 70 years.
• 39:26
  So that's going to be a hard sell.
• 39:27
  And also, if we start charging tolls, inevitably people start seeking alternate
• 39:31
  routes, so we increase congestion and traffic on parallel roads, which were not
• 39:35
  designed to handle the kind of traffic we see on the interstate highway system.
• 39:39
  We also, uh, look at another possible solution of a mileage tax, where now
• 39:43
  we just charge drivers based on the actual distance they're traveling
• 39:47
  versus the fuel that they're using.
• 39:49
  And obviously this has the great benefit of being totally unaffected by
• 39:52
  changes in fuel efficiency or fuel type.
• 39:54
  It's just based on how far you go.
• 39:56
  It would also have the side benefit of encouraging more careful trip planning
• 40:00
  and perhaps even more efficient use of our existing roads or causing people to
• 40:04
  think twice about an unnecessary trip.
• 40:06
  But we famously have privacy concerns in the United States, right?
• 40:09
  And a, a mileage tax would also require a complicated transition from
• 40:13
  our existing fuel tax method, right?
• 40:15
  We'd have to come up with a whole new way to monitor and collect
• 40:18
  these funds based on mileage.
• 40:19
  Now, those kinds of technologies do exist where it can be automatically
• 40:23
  recorded by your car, but imagine installing that in every one of
• 40:26
  the 300 million or so automobiles that are here in the United States.
• 40:30
  Not going to be cheap, not going to be easy.
• 40:32
  Which leads us to the idea of autonomous cars, which have been right around the
• 40:36
  corner for the last 10 years or so.
• 40:37
  But at some point, at some point I do believe they will become more,
• 40:41
  uh, more regular on our roads.
• 40:42
  They would make a mileage tax rather easy and rather practical to implement.
• 40:46
  They're obviously by definition new cars that everyone's going to have,
• 40:49
  and they have systems built into them to automatically record this
• 40:52
  mileage that is, uh, traveled and then transmit that data to a central agency
• 40:56
  somewhere for collection of payment.
• 40:58
  But of course, that doesn't ease our privacy concerns, so that's probably
• 41:01
  going to be a hard sell as well.
• 41:04
  The interstate highway system contains just 4% of the U.S. public roads, but
• 41:08
  it carries more than 40% of highway traffic and 70% of highway truck
• 41:14
  freight traffic in the United States.
• 41:15
  So we can debate the funding methods, how these things should be paid for, who
• 41:20
  should be doing it, when it should be done, but we cannot debate our dependence
• 41:23
  on this system, and we are at a point where a solution has to be found and
• 41:27
  frankly has to be found fairly quickly.
• 41:29
  So hate to end the conversation on a doom and gloom note like that, but,
• 41:32
  uh, it is reality, I'm afraid, so.
• 41:35
  Okay.
• 41:36
  Fair enough.
• 41:37
  Thank… I would like to thank all three of our presenters here.
• 41:40
  Uh, these have been terrific.
• 41:54
  This episode is made possible by the Studebaker National Museum,
• 41:58
  the home of South Bend, Indiana's automotive and industrial heritage.
• 42:03
  The museum preserves and interprets the legacy of Studebaker through
• 42:07
  its world-class collection of vehicles, artifacts, and archival
• 42:11
  materials, including several nationally designated treasures.
• 42:15
  As a center for history, design, and innovation, the museum inspires
• 42:20
  enthusiasts and the community alike through its exhibits, programming, and
• 42:25
  commitment to safeguarding the stories that shaped American transportation.
• 42:29
  To learn more or plan your visit, check out www.studebakermuseum.org.
• 42:38
  This episode is also brought to you by the Society of Automotive Historians.
• 42:44
  They encourage research into any aspect of automotive history.
• 42:48
  The SAH actively supports the compilation and preservation of papers, organizational
• 42:55
  records, print ephemera, and images to safeguard as well as to broaden and
• 43:00
  deepen the understanding of motorized wheeled land transportation through
• 43:05
  the modern age and into the future.
• 43:08
  For more information about the SAH, visit www.autohistory.org
• 43:20
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