Dublin, CA to install Lincoln Highway signs

The city of Dublin, California is planning to install four Lincoln Highway signs along Dublin Boulevard, which was the Lincoln Highway’s alignment through the city. The cost of buying and installing the signs will be covered by the Dublin Historical Preservation Association.

Folsom, CA honors man who brought historic bridge back

The city of Folsom, California has dedicated the 1893 Folsom Historic Truss Bridge after Donald Alden, who spearheaded efforts to have the bridge returned to the city after it sat in Siskiyou County from 1931 to 2000. The bridge carried Lincoln Highway traffic until it was bypassed by the adjacent Rainbow Bridge in 1917.

Owner of Duarte’s Lincoln Highway Garage dies

This article was written by Michael Kaelin, recording secretary of the California Chapter of the Lincoln Highway Association.

Francis “Frank” H. Duarte passed away on November 22, 2011. He was the last business owner of the iconic Duarte’s Lincoln Highway Garage in Livermore, California.

Frank was born in 1915, the year of the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, a magnet destination and banner year for development of the early Lincoln Highway.

Frank had just turned 96, and had returned to Livermore in 2008 from Applegate, where he had retired in 1977. He had owned and managed Duarte’s Garage since his discharge from the Army Air Corps in 1945. Previously, he started working for his father, Frank, at the garage in 1934, later enlisting as an aircraft mechanic in 1939.

Mr. Duarte is survived by 2 nieces, Kathy Erickson of Scottsdale, Arizona and Donna Kosch of Everett, Washington. Services for him on December 14 were private, and Frank was interred at St. Michael Cemetery in Livermore. Donations in his name may be made to the Duarte Garage Museum, now operated by the Livermore Heritage Guild.

Coincidentally, the California Chapter is holding its winter quarter meeting at Duarte’s Garage on January 7, 2012. It will be a joint meeting with the Livermore Heritage Guild after a luncheon at Beebe’s Restaurant at the Livermore Golf Course.

The oldest concrete highway in Missouri, and what’s left of it

James Baughn of the Southeast Missourian writes about the oldest concrete highway in Missouri, completed in 1921, and how it is being obliterated by trucks rebuilding river levees.

Mapping the Lincoln Highway through the Utah desert

The Desert Research Institute, part of the Nevada System of Higher Education, has precisely mapped the Lincoln Highway through the Utah desert west of Salt Lake City.

Be sure to check out their photo tours of the 1913 and 1919 routes. It takes a little while to load, and there is no indication that a tour is loading, so be patient.

Thanks to Rachel Quist for the tip!

Old diner being restored for Lincoln Highway museum

An old diner is being restored to its 1930s glory and will become the focal part of the Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor’s Lincoln Highway Experience Museum, being built in Unity, Pennsylvania.

Travel blog on the Lincoln Highway from Truckee to Salt Lake City

P. Grover Cleveland, a landscape photographer and history and travel buff, is writing about his trip along the 1913 alignment of the Lincoln Highway from Truckee, California to Salt Lake City on his blog, Camera and Pencil in the Mountains. His posts are full of photos, tips, and GPS waypoints.

DeKalb, IL finishing up downtown renovations by summer

Re:New DeKalb said that its renovation projects of downtown DeKalb, Illinois will be finished by summer 2012. It has already completed projects that, among other things, improved the streetscape of the Lincoln Highway through the city.

TruckeeDave on the Lincoln Highway

“TruckeeDave” has two blogs, CorduroyPlanet on Blogger and CorduroyPlanet on Tumblr, where, among other topics, he writes about the Lincoln Highway, especially in California. One of his entries includes a proposal for the Amgen Tour of California bicycle race to have a Lincoln Highway leg in 2013, the highway’s centennial.