The sign shown in this photo of the former Lincoln Hotel in downtown LaPorte is now a part of the LaPorte County Historical Society Museum’s permanent collection, on display in the lower level of the museum.
By Fern Eddy Schultz, LaPorte County Historian
For many months prior to February 1914, the Lincoln Highway Association had been working on that proposed thoroughfare. It was,
LaPorte County Historian Fern Eddy Schultz
however, on Tuesday evening, Feb. 4, 1914, that the organizers brought the idea to LaPorte during a meeting at the downtown Phoenix Theatre. At that meeting, association members gave LaPorteans their “first definite and clear idea of the intent and purposes of the great proposition.”
Before that meeting, local citizens thought the association would assume the entire cost, or at least a good share of it, to improve the highways over which the Lincoln route had been laid out.
A Mr. Bookwalter came to LaPorte via the Lake Erie Railroad to bring his good cheer and enthusiasm and indicated that after that ride, he was more than ever in favor of good roads. He told the assemblage that the Lincoln Highway plan originated with Carl Fischer of Indianapolis, who came into his office one day and asked him if he thought he looked insane. When advised by Bookwalter that he looked perfectly normal, he outlined his scheme to the mayor for building a coast-to-coast permanent highway.
Fischer paid all of the expenses of the preliminary work and subscribed besides $100,000, and it was noted that the road did not come “within 50 miles of his home city, Indianapolis.” It was expected tributaries would follow soon as there was already talk in Indianapolis of a connector from that city.
When the plans were formally announced to establish the highway as a memorial to the martyred president, with an estimated cost of $25 million, many thousands of citizens were skeptical of its ultimate success.
A map of the Lincoln Highway.
Mr. Pardington, vice president of the Lincoln Highway Association, mentioned some of the great benefits local communities would derive from the road. Tourists in 1915, a good four-fifths of them from east of the Mississippi River, using the road to get to California, would spend not less than about $4 million in fuel, food, lodging and other travel expenses. He noted that LaPorte, being on the route, would receive its share of the benefits.
Also at the LaPorte meeting, a construction company representative, A.D. Franks, talked about concrete roads, and “moving pictures” were shown of roads that were presently under construction in Wayne County, Michigan. Because enough time had passed to prove the durability of concrete roads, they were considered “permanent” by that time. The only other option was brick, and that would be more expensive.
Even back then, rumors swirled of under-the-table benefits to certain entities. It was mentioned at the meeting that word was, the cement manufacturers of LaPorte County were behind the highway proposition. The response to this was that they were “behind it to the extent that they had donated over a million barrels of cement to the association, which would amount to something like $2,000,000.”
It was noted that La Porte County had been in “advance of its neighbors in the mileage of roads (over 300 miles), but it was woefully behind in the Lincoln Highway proposition.” The county needed to build a permanent road from LaPorte to the St. Joseph County, IN, line, and it was stressed that “every effort should be made to bring this about.” If this was not accomplished, the Lincoln Highway would come to the boundary of the county and there it would stop unless a “mighty effort” was made by the people to have it continue. The approximate cost of making this happen was $125,000.
And so the Lincoln Highway project ultimately included LaPorte among its supporting communities.
LaPorte celebrated Lincoln Highway Day on Friday, June 25, 1915, according to the LaPorte Argus. “Thousands of people and hundreds of automobiles pack the streets of LaPorte when monster parade in honor of highway passes in review along Lincoln Way.” A movie man took pictures of the parade for a big 10,000-foot film. LaPorte was one of 65 cities represented in the film. Miss LaPorte was all “dolled up in her finest apparel” for the event. The parade was deemed “the equal of any such demonstration the city ever saw and showed the heads of the Lincoln Highway association that she is glad that the great trans-continental highway runs through this city.”
On July 19, 1919, the first transcontinental convoy of the U.S. Army Motor Transport Corps passed through LaPorte “in the premier military test of the Lincoln Highway.” Sixty-six heavy Liberty trucks, several touring cars and roadsters, serving in scout capacity, and a number of motorcycles with sidecars, left Washington, D.C., on July 7 and were expected to complete the cross-country journey in San Francisco on Sept. 1.
FOR MORE INFORMATION about the Lincoln Highway, visit http://www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/. Also, visit the LaPorte County Historical Society Museum, which features among its thousands of items a sturdy concrete post, 5 feet or so in height, with a copper medallion bearing Lincoln’s profile. The post was one of 3,000 hauled and installed by Boy Scouts along every mile of the Lincoln Highway. For the museum’s hours and more, visit www.laportecountyhistory.org.