Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway

by Effie Price Gladding

Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway is a classic American travelogue by Effie Price Gladding. From the Pacific to the Atlantic by the Lincoln Highway, with California and the Virginias and Maryland thrown in for good measure! What a tour it has been! As we think back over its miles we recall the noble pines and the towering Sequoias of the high Sierras of California; the flashing water-falls of the Yosemite, so green as to be called Vernal, so white as to be called Bridal Veil; the orchards of the prune, the cherry, the walnut, the olive, the almond, the fig, the orange, and the lemon, tilled like a garden, watered by the hoarded and guarded streams from the everlasting hills; and the rich valleys of grain, running up to the hillsides and dotted by live oak trees. The Lincoln Highway was one of the earliest transcontinental highways for automobiles across the United States of America.[1] Conceived in 1912 by Indiana entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, and formally dedicated October 31, 1913, the Lincoln Highway ran coast-to-coast from Times Square in New York City west to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, originally through 13 states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California. In 1915, the "Colorado Loop" was removed, and in 1928, a realignment relocated the Lincoln Highway through the northern tip of West Virginia. Thus, there are a total of 14 states, 128 counties, and more than 700 cities, towns and villages through which the highway passed at some time in its history. The first officially recorded length of the entire Lincoln Highway in 1913 was 3,389 miles (5,454 km).[a] Over the years, the road was improved and numerous realignments were made,[3] and by 1924 the highway had been shortened to 3,142 miles (5,057 km). Counting the original route and all of the subsequent realignments, there have been a grand total of 5,872 miles (9,450 km).[4] The Lincoln Highway was gradually replaced with numbered designations after the establishment of the U.S. Numbered Highway System in 1926, with most of the route becoming part of U.S. Route 30 from Pennsylvania to Wyoming. After the Interstate Highway System was formed in the 1950s, the former alignments of the Lincoln Highway were largely superseded by Interstate 80 as the primary coast-to-coast route from the New York City area to San Francisco.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Historical

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 3, 2010

Reviews

[Pam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book calls to mind the Johnny Cash song “I’ve Been Everywhere” …crossed the deserts bare, man. I’ve breathed the mountain air, man…Pasadena, Catalina, Reno, Colorado, Nebraska, Dayton…I’ve been everywhere. In the introduction Gladding explains that she and “T” (husband) intend to cross the U.S. on the newly opened Lincoln Highway. Her book was published in 1915. After a bit of an awkward statement suggesting they have seen cornbread growing in fields (metaphor) the author settles in and writes a decent book. They start in San Francisco, one of the ends of the highway but immediately take a major detour. They don’t actually get on the LH until 40% of their trip has been described. If you imagine a dragonfly with its head on San Francisco and tail pointing eastward, they first drive up the northern wing in California and then loop back to San Francisco and do another wing loop south on the old Spanish Camino Real to south of Los Angeles then turn northward on the wing before reaching the Lincoln Highway at last. All historically interesting and I’m sure beautiful in its day but definitely not the LH. Gladding is a good observer of nature, history, and historic hotels. And cafeterias! They must have been a relatively new phenomenon as she enthuses over them everywhere she finds them on her trip. I counted at least seven mentions. She was like an early Fodor’s for cafeterias and hotels. Amazingly, many of the hotels are still in existence.

At last they join the road. The LH was not what we’d recognize as a highway today. It was often, clay, sand, grassy pathways, rocky and full of chuck holes. I don’t remember any mention of paving at all. Because the going was slow and towns were few in the West, they often stopped at ranches and asked for food and lodging. She mentions a few breakdowns and getting stuck in mud or streambeds. People in wagons, farmers with heavy horse teams or drivers of the few other automobiles on the road would come to the rescue. They pushed on through Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado etc. only to slip off the LH again and detour through WV, Virginia, and Maryland and eventually finish at the Eastern terminus in NJ.

Gladding is observant as to people’s foibles but not critical. She gets accustomed to men without coats or waistcoats in restaurants and to the reply “You Bet!” i.e. Are we on the Lincoln Highway?—“You Bet!” This was quite the adventure. I don’t think improved roads came along until Henry Ford’s Model T’s became readily available to the masses. The author and “T” started out in a Studebaker and switched in Denver to another “machine” as Gladding always called automobiles. They meet the occasional Stutz or Locomobile along the way. I definitely enjoyed her trip.

[Lucky_dog · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know why, but I really like old travel books. This is the story of a cross country trip taken in 1910 on the country's first real "highway", the Lincoln Highway. It describes towns and cities, scenery, road conditions, how travellers secured accommodations, even descriptions of the roads and other travellers they met in cars along the way. It is an interesting insight to automobile travel when most of the traffic was still by horse. What makes it even more impressive for its day was that it was written by a woman. Although at times descriptions were somewhat brief and choppy, I still thoroughly enjoyed it from coast to coast.

[Lauren Hiebner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a travel account of the Lincoln highway starting in California in 1914. The first 40% of the book takes place in California as the author travels from the San Fransisco area down Los Angeles and on to San Diego. Then Gladding heads east through the fertile fields of fruit and vegetables to Bakersfield and Fresno and finally reaches the Lincoln Highway. At this time much of the Lincoln Highway was not paved or bricked but rather dirt, sand, and gravel covered. Sometimes the only way to tell that you were on the Lincoln Highway was a red, white, and blue sign with the letter L on it. All along the route the author is very perceptive in describing what she sees such as; the conditions of the road, the land they travel through, the towns, the homes, ranches, and hotels they lodge in, the food they eat, the flora and fauna they see, the weather, and the fellow travelers they meet on the road. At times she can be quite critical of local foods and people and at other times almost a visionary as to what the future will hold for the lands they travel through. The author identified every type of automobile that they encountered on the road and often than not, they met up with covered wagons pulled by either horses or donkeys containing people going west to California or the Pacific Northwest. So the author traveled from California to New York mostly on the Lincoln Highway with numerous side trips off the road to see the sights. This made for an interesting read to see what traveling in the U.S. was like around 1914.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting. She had good descriptions of every place they visited, and I enjoyed looking at a map to follow along.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

She doesn't give much color commentary on the trip, but it's amazing to read about such a different time! She and her husband were in a car (actually two different ones, you find out at the end), but many others were doing this trip in covered wagons! I really enjoyed the glimpses into life 110 years ago, and took notes for my own upcoming Lincoln Highway trip!