2020 Indiana Lincoln Highway Sign Project

Posted on by

One of our top projects right now is the addition of more of the LH BYWAY signs that you see across our 2 alignments. We placed our first signs about 3 years ago and some need replacing, some routing has changed, some were actually stolen, and some extras are being added to benefit the traveler. If you can, we ask you help contribute to this project. Each sign costs over $40 and each turn arrow costs nearly $15 and we need 70-80 more, so you can see it adds up quickly.

CAN YOU AFFORD TO SEND US $50 OR $100 OR MORE TO HELP SIGN THE STATE THOROUGHLY? WE WILL SEND YOU A POSTER BOARD REPLICA OF THE  24” x 24” BYWAY SIGN IF YOU SEND AT LEAST $50. THANK YOU !!
All donations are tax deductible, as the INLHA is a 501 (c) (3) organization for IRS purpose. You can use the PayPal “Donate” button on our homepage with a credit card even if you don’t have PayPal account.

 

Please Consider the Indiana Lincoln Highway Association For Your Year-End Giving

Posted on by
Reply

Holiday Greetings from the Indiana Lincoln Highway Association (INLHA) – dedicated to preserving and celebrating this important part of American history. The INLHA is an all volunteer non-profit organization, and any donations are tax deductible. Your donations  help sponsor special projects such as signing and historic preservation.
Scroll down on our homepage until you see the donate button.
https://indianalincolnhighway.org/
Click this to go to PayPal. You can make a secure donation by checking account or credit card even if you do not have a PayPal account. Thanks for your consideration.

Join us as we Gather in Goshen for our 2019 Fall Meeting

Posted on by
Reply

Join us as we Gather in Goshen For our Fall Event
Saturday, November 2, 2019

The fall meeting of the Indiana Lincoln Highway Association (INLHA) will be in Goshen, Indiana on November 2, 2019.  Everyone is invited, whether a current INLHA member or just interested!   Here is our tentative agenda.

♦ 9:30 a.m. EDT – Meet at the Reith Interpretive Center for car pooling. The facility is located at Millrace Park, 410 W. Plymouth Ave. Click here for a Google map of the area:  https://goo.gl/maps/42z2YX15138zyJ2w6

♦ 10:00-11:30 a.m. – Join us at the Lincoln Highway kiosk at Fidler Pond Park, 1424 Lincolnway East for a view of our LH historic panels and a brief discussion of the LH through Goshen, followed by a drive further east on US 33 to just beyond Benton, IN to hear the story of the ongoing restoration of the Benton Tourist Camp Cabins and some recognition for Dave Beachy and his work there. The cabins were recently added to the National Register of Historic Places.

♦ 11:30-12:30p.m. – Lunch on our own at one of the suggested restaurants listed below.

♦ 12:30-2:30 p.m. – INLHA business meeting back at the Reith Interpretive Center.  All are welcome if you have an interest in the activities underway regarding the LH in Indiana or want to know more. If not, just come for the morning!

Restaurant suggestions for lunch:

Olympia Candy Kitchen
136 N. Main St. (across from the Court House)

South Side Soda Shop
1122 South Main St.

Venturi’s Pizza
123 E. Lincoln St.
Opens at 11:30

Hopper’s
1208 W. Pike St.

Goshen Brewing Co.
315 W. Washington St.

Lunch and Learn in La Porte – Saturday, July 13, 2019

Posted on by
Reply

You are invited to
Lunch and Learn in La Porte
during the
 The Indiana Lincoln Highway Association’s
Summer Event & Annual Meeting
Saturday, July 13, 2019
Mama T’s Diner (formerly B & J’s American Cafe)

The Itinerary:

  • 9:00 am Central Daylight Time:  Meet at Mama T’s Diner, 607 Lincolnway, La Porte 46350
  • 9:15 – 11:15 am:  La Porte native Bruce Johnson, educator and historian, will guide non-board member attendees as they visit the Lincoln Highway Kiosk downtown, then drive to the La Porte County Historical Society Museum for a tour ($3.00), 2405 Indiana Avenue. laportecountyhistory.org/
  • 9:15 – 11:15:  INLHA Board meeting
  • 11:30 – 1:30:  Lunch and Membership Meeting at Mama T’s.  We will order off the menu on our own.

Meeting Highlights:

  • View The Lincoln Highway’s Ideal Section* produced by Paul Nelson
  • Hear updates on INLHA projects and activities including the visit by two groups traveling cross-country commemorating the 100th anniversary of the U.S. Army’s 1919 Transcontinental Motor Convoy on the Lincoln Highway
  • Election of Directors, and more.

We look forward to seeing YOU! There is no charge (except for the Museum entry fee) but it would be helpful for planning if you reply by email that you will attend. Use the link in the upper right hand corner of this page under the Byway sign.

* The 20 minute documentary offers a look at the creation of the Ideal Section of the Lincoln Highway, the memorial site, and the restoration of the Henry C. Ostermann Memorial Seat and the Ideal Section Monument.  The video includes historic photos and movie clips as well as interpretive comments from several members of the Indiana Lincoln Highway Association and other historians.  In addition, viewers will get a condensed introduction to the Lincoln Highway, including the 1919 Military Convoy.

 

Original Lincoln Highway Buffet at 607 Lincolnway in La Porte, IN

The Indiana Lincoln Highway Association office has moved down the street:

Posted on by
Reply

The Indiana Chapter has moved a few blocks west to a small office space in the 1885 Romanesque mansion built by South Bend business leader William Kizer, listed in the 1915 LH Road Guide as the St. Joseph County Consul.  While the interior is being renovated by Indiana Landmarks, who will use this as their Northern Regional Office, we are in the carriage house behind the home.  The INLHA took over the space in the Remedy Building when the LHA National Office was closed in 2008. The replica LH concrete post that was planted during the LHA National Office Dedication on April 21, 2007, will be removed and stored until it can be installed at an appropriate site along the 1928 alignment. The new INLHA address is 801 W. Washington St., South Bend, IN 46601.  Bev Gillespie continues as the volunteer office manager.

Review of Honest Eats

Posted on by
Reply

Keith Elchert and Laura Weston-Elchert have written a wonderful new book Honest Eats – Celebrating the Rich Food History of Indiana’s Historic Lincoln Highway.
The book is now available through Amazon. Use the AmazonSmile homepage when you shop, and Amazon donates 0.5% of the purchase price to the Indiana Lincoln HIghway Association. Please bookmark this link for all your future Amazon shopping – thanks:  http://smile.amazon.com/ch/68-0661158
Honest EatsHere’s a review by Jeff Blair, president of the Indiana Chapter of the Lincoln Highway Association:

I had heard for the past couple of years about this book on restaurants along Indiana’s portion of the Lincoln Highway and looked forward to seeing it when it was to be released. I had personally walked the two Indiana alignments twice, once in 2011 and again in 2014, so felt I was a pretty knowledgeable guy about places to see and eat on its paths. I might even be the first one to order a copy the very day I got the email that it was about to be released from publication. Boy am I glad!

Laura and Keith’s book is terrific and a good read for everyone…Hoosiers, Lincoln Highway tourists, history buffs, even those who love a good picture or postcard.  Photographer Brian Tombaugh and Graphic Designer Amanda Reyher, along with many other contributors, make this a visually stimulating book in addition to the fine verbal content.

The Lincoln Highway from New York City to San Francisco is often considered the “Main Street of America” and the Elchert’s book is a marvelous walk down that Main Street. It is full of old and new descriptions and photographs of nearly 100 Indiana restaurants that bring the Highway to life…through food.  It introduces you to innumerable Hoosier entrepreneurs who have left their footprint on northern Indiana over the years. Along the walk they point out additional points of interest either on the Lincoln or nearby. And you get the added pleasure of some of the divine recipes they collected in their travels.

My congratulations and thanks to the Elchert’s for this book. It is extremely well researched and they give ample praise to the many historical societies and individuals that made contributions. Here are my summary recommendations to anyone reading this review…

  • SHOW IT by putting the book on your coffee table or business waiting room table for everyone to see…your guests will be both surprised and pleased to learn about this historic road and its significance.
  • DRIVE IT…the Indiana Lincoln Highway that is. Use the book as a great guide across the state to find the listed points of interests and many more of your own.
  • DIGEST IT…whether it be through testing the many great looking recipes or supporting the wonderful restaurants and diners depicted throughout the book.  Find the perfect Indiana tenderloin, the finest candy, great little diners, outstanding ethnic stops all along the route.  But first I highly recommend you…
  • BUY IT! It will be a great addition to your home or library.  You will not be disappointed.

WordPress web problem

Posted on by
Reply

There are 101 subscribers to the Indiana Lincoln HIghway Association website. When you get an e-mail from the website it means that a new entry has been posted on the Blog / News page. For some reason the first link on the e-mails for the blog title does not work. To go to the page just use:
https://indianalincolnhighway.org/blog-news
or click on the Categories link at the bottom of the email,
or click on our homepage and use the menu bar underneath the picture:
https://indianalincolnhighway.org/
Sorry for any inconvenience. Any WordPress experts out there?

Race to finish the Lincoln Highway Ostermann Monument Site Renovation

Posted on by
Reply

It’s May in Indiana, so attention has turned to anticipation surrounding who will qualify for the100th running of Carl Fisher’s Indianapolis 500 race on May 29th, and who will persevere to Victory Lane.

In Northwest Indiana, another race is underway along the Ideal Section of Carl Fisher’s Lincoln Highway—the race to complete the renovations at the site of the Henry C. Ostermann Memorial Seat and the Ideal Section Monument before the official September 17th dedication. Generous in-kind and monetary donations have enabled qualifying renovations to date which include the removal and refinishing of the five historical plaques (four bronze and one aluminum), cleaning, tuck-pointing, and adding a protective coating to the stone monuments, excavation of the flagstone steps and terrace, removal of non-original trees and vegetation, completion of a sidewalk to improve access, and development of interpretive panels and restoration of a Lincoln Highway concrete post to enhance the site.

Now we’re ready for the race to the finish line: professional re-installation of the plaques, fabrication of the interpretive panels and mounting posts, repairs for the steps and terrace and some final landscaping will cost about $2,000. Remaining balance in the account plus new donations from the Indiana Lincoln Highway Association members bring the total needed down to about $1,000. Tax-deductible donations of any size at any time are welcome, but reaching the checkered flag by May 29th will assure that we have the time needed to complete the project by September.

Contributions can be made by check payable to INLHA and sent to Indiana Lincoln Highway Association, 402 W. Washington St., South Bend, IN 46601. You can also pay by PayPal using the Donate button on our homepage, even if you do not have a PayPal account. Just mention that your contribution is for the Ostermann Bench in the PayPal comments section.
https://indianalincolnhighway.org/

Thanks for your help in driving the Ostermann/Ideal Section Restoration Project to Victory Lane!

See the attached PDF for photos of the progress to date.  Please share this with other interested persons/groups.
https://indianalincolnhighway.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Ideal-Section-Ostermann-Seat-Renovation.pdf

Thank You!
Indiana Lincoln Highway Association

Ostermann bench 1924 LH Guide

Ostermann bench 1924 LH Guide

 

AmazonSmile – Your online purchases can help the Indiana Lincoln Highway Association

Posted on by
Reply

The Indiana Lincoln Highway Association is a non-profit organization, and relies on membership, donations in cash and in-kind, and the occasional grant for funding. We have a lot of ongoing projects, and this is another way you can help when you buy products online from Amazon. Use the AmazonSmile homepage when you shop and
Amazon donates 0.5% of the purchase price to the Indiana Lincoln HIghway Association. Please bookmark this link for all your future Amazon shopping – thanks:
http://smile.amazon.com/ch/68-0661158