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The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate
The best-selling author of Route 66 and a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer celebrate America's first transcontinental highway in all its neon glory. It began in 1913 with a glorious new highway―stretching across 3,389 miles and 13 states―that connected the bright lights of Broadway with the foggy shores of San Francisco. It was a magnificent and meandering road that enticed millions of newly motoring Americans to hop into their Model Ts and explore the fading frontier. The Lincoln Highway. It was the road of Gettysburg, Pretty Boy Floyd, Notre Dame, the Great Salt Lake, and the Gold Rush Trail. Once a symbol of limitless potential, it is now undergoing (as Route 66 did twenty years ago) a miraculous revival. With hundreds of new and rare photographs provided by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Michael S. Williamson, this ode to a bygone era guides us across the true spine of the country, exploring vintage diners, Art Deco buildings, and funky roadside attractions, all waiting to be discovered. 300 color illustrations
304 pages, Hardcover
First published July 1, 2007
4 people are currently reading
192 people want to read
About the author
Michael Wallis
46 books77 followersMichael Wallis is the bestselling author of Route 66, Billy the Kid, Pretty Boy, and David Crockett. He hosts the PBS series American Roads. He voiced The Sheriff in the animated Pixar feature Cars. He lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
May 22, 2019
The Lincoln Highway is the Route 66 before Route 66 was Route 66. The Lincoln stretches across the northern USA and though it is ‘The Father’ of the US highway system I daresay, no one has ever heard of it.
Appropriately, co-author Mike Wallis takes on the task of telling us about this highway, he is also the author of the popular ‘Route 66: The Mother Road”. As in previous books, Wallis takes the highway state by state through the heartland of the US exploring the restaurants, turns and twists of the road and its history. Sometime in the 1920s the highway system switched to numbers instead of names, it is mostly US 30, so maybe that is how the name Lincoln Highway became a footnote.
I was surprised to find the road went through Mansfield, Ohio. That is my parents’ hometown, my grandparents and all the extended family. I have driven US 30 visiting hundreds, thousands? Of times, also I was a truck driver in Ohio for several years and I never heard any of these people or anyone else refer to the ‘Lincoln Highway’. This makes it quite a curiosity to me !
There are plenty of photos and plenty to do along the populous route, perhaps that’s the problem, it is well used in most places, so it doesn’t have that separate identity from the towns it runs through. Occasionally the story goes off-road into the social problems of an area, which don’t seem relevant to the highway, more like filler. The poor road just doesn’t have the nostalgia of a Route 66. There is only a high level map in the front cover, so each chapter could use a map to show the towns along the way. The town of Wendover, Utah is mentioned, which is the location of the famous speed track the Bonneville Salt Flats, the highway runs right past it, and it got its start about the same time the Lincoln did, and it is never mentioned in the book?! I don’t know how you write about a highway and transportation without mentioning Bonneville?
Overall this is an informative book, a good read, one you will need if you decide to learn about or travel the Lincoln Highway.
Appropriately, co-author Mike Wallis takes on the task of telling us about this highway, he is also the author of the popular ‘Route 66: The Mother Road”. As in previous books, Wallis takes the highway state by state through the heartland of the US exploring the restaurants, turns and twists of the road and its history. Sometime in the 1920s the highway system switched to numbers instead of names, it is mostly US 30, so maybe that is how the name Lincoln Highway became a footnote.
I was surprised to find the road went through Mansfield, Ohio. That is my parents’ hometown, my grandparents and all the extended family. I have driven US 30 visiting hundreds, thousands? Of times, also I was a truck driver in Ohio for several years and I never heard any of these people or anyone else refer to the ‘Lincoln Highway’. This makes it quite a curiosity to me !
There are plenty of photos and plenty to do along the populous route, perhaps that’s the problem, it is well used in most places, so it doesn’t have that separate identity from the towns it runs through. Occasionally the story goes off-road into the social problems of an area, which don’t seem relevant to the highway, more like filler. The poor road just doesn’t have the nostalgia of a Route 66. There is only a high level map in the front cover, so each chapter could use a map to show the towns along the way. The town of Wendover, Utah is mentioned, which is the location of the famous speed track the Bonneville Salt Flats, the highway runs right past it, and it got its start about the same time the Lincoln did, and it is never mentioned in the book?! I don’t know how you write about a highway and transportation without mentioning Bonneville?
Overall this is an informative book, a good read, one you will need if you decide to learn about or travel the Lincoln Highway.
November 20, 2025
Review title: The Great American Road Trip
2025 was my first full year of retirement and will be remembered as our Lincoln Highway year. My wife and I spent the month of April driving from our home half a mile from the Lincoln Highway in Ligonier, PA west to its San Francisco western terminus, then a week in October driving to Maine then back home on the Lincoln from its eastern terminus in Times Square. It was one of our retirement wish list items and was worth the planning and effort. It has also been a year of reading about the highway both before, during and after our journey. So when my wife found this used edition on sale at the Lincoln Highway Experience museum where she volunteers, it was a sure buy.
While this volume is fine for its narrative and pictures, I would recommend Brian Butko's Lincoln Highway Companion: A Guide to America's First Coast-to-Coast Road as a more valuable companion for planning, taking, and remembering a trip on the Lincoln Highway. While both are very similar in their state-by-state arrangement, copious pictures of the route and roadside sights, and book size and format, Butko includes a route map for each state with points of interest marked, as well as contact information for places to eat, visit, and stay along the route. While both books are now more than 15 years old so some of the information is now dated, we were able to use Butko to point us to some really cool experiences on our trip. The absence of the route map to identify the specific location under discussion is important because of the several route changes the Lincoln Highway underwent in its brief heyday.
Another difference is that while Butko is specifically writing a travel guide, Wallis (and photographer Williamson) is a historian interested in the broader story, so sometimes he devotes paragraphs on things only tangentially related to the Highway. And as a writer familiar with western topics (see, for example, Billy the Kid: The Endless ride) it feels like he pays less attention to some of the great eastern sections of the Highway, like the stretch in western Pennsylvania where I live. While the western portions of the route are spectacular in scenery, remote in location, and fascinating in history and remnants, the eastern portion is also rich in road-trip history.
But those criticisms aside, this is an interesting volume full of memories for me and future memories for those who choose to take The Great American Road Trip.
2025 was my first full year of retirement and will be remembered as our Lincoln Highway year. My wife and I spent the month of April driving from our home half a mile from the Lincoln Highway in Ligonier, PA west to its San Francisco western terminus, then a week in October driving to Maine then back home on the Lincoln from its eastern terminus in Times Square. It was one of our retirement wish list items and was worth the planning and effort. It has also been a year of reading about the highway both before, during and after our journey. So when my wife found this used edition on sale at the Lincoln Highway Experience museum where she volunteers, it was a sure buy.
While this volume is fine for its narrative and pictures, I would recommend Brian Butko's Lincoln Highway Companion: A Guide to America's First Coast-to-Coast Road as a more valuable companion for planning, taking, and remembering a trip on the Lincoln Highway. While both are very similar in their state-by-state arrangement, copious pictures of the route and roadside sights, and book size and format, Butko includes a route map for each state with points of interest marked, as well as contact information for places to eat, visit, and stay along the route. While both books are now more than 15 years old so some of the information is now dated, we were able to use Butko to point us to some really cool experiences on our trip. The absence of the route map to identify the specific location under discussion is important because of the several route changes the Lincoln Highway underwent in its brief heyday.
Another difference is that while Butko is specifically writing a travel guide, Wallis (and photographer Williamson) is a historian interested in the broader story, so sometimes he devotes paragraphs on things only tangentially related to the Highway. And as a writer familiar with western topics (see, for example, Billy the Kid: The Endless ride) it feels like he pays less attention to some of the great eastern sections of the Highway, like the stretch in western Pennsylvania where I live. While the western portions of the route are spectacular in scenery, remote in location, and fascinating in history and remnants, the eastern portion is also rich in road-trip history.
But those criticisms aside, this is an interesting volume full of memories for me and future memories for those who choose to take The Great American Road Trip.
September 13, 2022
I'd never heard of the Lincoln Highway until I read the Amor Towles book of the same name. This is a road trip book with wonderful photos and interesting narrative. The Lincoln Highway is not a single highway but rather was cobbled together in 1916 along various numbered highways in 14 states from NY to CA and appears mostly to go through small towns and forgotten places. Just looking through this book makes me long to throw my baggage in the car and start out to discover America off the interstates, stopping at old motor courts and diners along the way.
January 29, 2023
This was a fun 'coffee table' book. Took me a while to travel the entire road...book, but I did and enjoyed the ride.
So much history and snap shots of how things were and the dreams that were.
Living not too far from the Lincoln highway made it that much more interesting.
Parts of history we should just keep alive!
So much history and snap shots of how things were and the dreams that were.
Living not too far from the Lincoln highway made it that much more interesting.
Parts of history we should just keep alive!
September 10, 2023
This was a delight after the Amor Towles book disappointed. This book is delightful in its writing and side bars. I have been on several parts of the highway most recently in 2019 on a cross country trip (NYS-Boise, Idaho).
I loved it. I found it entertaining and educational.
I loved it. I found it entertaining and educational.
October 10, 2017
Wonderful book - if we ever do the Lincoln Highway we'll have it right in the front seat with us!
July 4, 2019
Revealed a lot of history -- it wasn't until after I'd read this book that I realized I had driven on the Lincoln Highway. Now I am thinking about driving its full length some day.
Currently reading
July 30, 2022Very interesting, perusing type book. Read a chapter/state at a time.
April 27, 2024
Like the highway itself perhaps, alternately boring and very entertaining. I had never heard of the Lincoln Highway before reading this.
October 1, 2011
I drove on a section of this road to work for several years. Intrigued by what was east and west of the portions I have not driven, I just had to read this book.
While not as famous, perhaps, as it's southern counterpart, Route 66 that now mostly follows I 40, this Road is US 30 and starts in Times Square and ends in San Francisco. It is parallel to I 80.
It goes through Gettysburg and Pittsburgh and through East Liverpool Ohio where Pretty Boy Floyd met his untimely end. Along the way are art deco motels, roadside eateries where the locals entertain travelers chowing down on the best food America ever served up. The famous house in PA built in the shape if a shoe grace it's roadside.
Grab this book, get an RV and head out on a REAL road trip. You will see America as it was and is, not homogenized by the Interstate highway system.
While not as famous, perhaps, as it's southern counterpart, Route 66 that now mostly follows I 40, this Road is US 30 and starts in Times Square and ends in San Francisco. It is parallel to I 80.
It goes through Gettysburg and Pittsburgh and through East Liverpool Ohio where Pretty Boy Floyd met his untimely end. Along the way are art deco motels, roadside eateries where the locals entertain travelers chowing down on the best food America ever served up. The famous house in PA built in the shape if a shoe grace it's roadside.
Grab this book, get an RV and head out on a REAL road trip. You will see America as it was and is, not homogenized by the Interstate highway system.
August 26, 2013
Attractions on the Lincoln Highway are grouped by state, with somewhat sparse descriptions.
I especially paid attention to the attractions around Joliet/Plainfield, IL, where the Lincoln crosses two alignments of Route 66. For 3 blocks of road in Plainfield, the two classic roads overlap!
I also learned about a third highway--Grand Army of the Republic Hwy, which runs from Cape Cod, MA to Long Beach, CA. It also runs through Joliet.
I especially paid attention to the attractions around Joliet/Plainfield, IL, where the Lincoln crosses two alignments of Route 66. For 3 blocks of road in Plainfield, the two classic roads overlap!
I also learned about a third highway--Grand Army of the Republic Hwy, which runs from Cape Cod, MA to Long Beach, CA. It also runs through Joliet.
August 29, 2007
A really fun book! Part history, part travelogue, part picture book, this book gives a very detailed account on the Lincoln Highway, from NYC and ending in San Francisco. Each chapter focuses on a different state that the highway goes through. My only complaint is that the wide page format makes this book really hard to take with you anywhere or for reading in bed!
July 15, 2015
This book is about the Lincoln Highway that began in 1913 and it stretches across 3,389 miles and 13 states that connects New York,s Time Square to the San Francisco Golden State Brudge. This was such a wonderful book, it has great information in every state you would drive through, interesting facts, and lovely photographs. You really need to read it to enjoy it and understand it properly.
October 29, 2007
An interesting cross country tour traveling the Lincoln Highway (U.S. Rt. 30 through most of the country), one of our most scenic by-ways.
I obtained some history about many obscure places and discovered a few things that I would like to go and see.
I obtained some history about many obscure places and discovered a few things that I would like to go and see.
August 16, 2010
Great book that has good information on another famous American road, which covers a truly good slice of Americana, from coast to coast.
October 16, 2014
Take a road trip without leaving your couch. Great photography and stories of a bygone era. Travelling by car just ain't what it used to be.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews