The Lincoln Highway

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Original Lincoln Highway Marker in Wanship, Utah

Yesterday we took an auto tour of the significant sights along the part of the Lincoln Highway that goes through Echo Canyon in Utah.  The Lincoln Highway, established in 1913, was the first automobile road from the east coast to the west coast.  It originates at Times Square in New York City and ends in San Francisco.  It coincides with or runs close to Interstate 80 along most of its route.

The Pony Express route, the Mormon Trail, and the California Trail traveled by pioneers and 49'ers all passed through Echo Canyon. as well as the Union Pacific Railroad.  The Donner Party passed through in 1846 on its il-fated way to California.  Brigham Young led the first group of Mormon settlers through the canyon to the Great Salt Lake in 1847.

 Echo Canyon is bounded on the north by steep cliffs sculpted by nature.  In places, some of the layers of rock are a composite of rounded pebbles of various sizes embedded in what appears to be hardened mud.  There is a natural bridge in the cliffs near the site of the Emory Pony Express Station.  The highway goes under an old Union Pacific Railroad trestle near Echo Reservoir.

Here are a few of the pictures I took on our tour:

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Trip to Boise: Cheyenne to Rock Springs to Henefer

White Mountain

After leaving Cheyenne at noon Saturday, we stopped at the Rock Springs/Green River KOA right off I-80.  It was packed overnight, but was almost empty by the time we left.  Since we were staying only one night, we kept the trailer hooked to the truck and did only minimum setup.  Bill then got out his guitar and I escaped to the pool.

Our home

The trip along I-80 from Rock Springs, Wyoming, to Henefer, Utah is full of wide open spaces interrupted by amazing rock formations and a few pronghorn antelope. We definitely noticed the ups and downs.  Our mileage varied from a low of 7.8 mpg to 8.2 mpg.

Utah Welcome Station

We stopped at the Utah welcome station to gather information about the area, then peeled off onto I-84, reaching the East Canyon Resort before 4 PM.  Everything is set up for our six-day stay here.

Trip to Boise: Minden to Cheyenne

Thursday morning we pulled out of Minden, Nebraska, for Cheyenne, Wyoming.  The day was a lot cooler than previous ones and the trip was fairly uneventful. Nebraska is a WIDE state, so we saw a lot of cornfields.

Our destination for the night was the Terry Bison Ranch and RV Resort.  It is a working ranch established before Wyoming was a state.  Historically it was the largest ranch in Wyoming, but has been significantly reduced in size.  The stock includes over 3000 head of bison that are raised for slaughter.  They have a small herd of seven camels and are the only camel breeders in Wyoming.  There are also llamas, alpacas, goats, and wild mustangs.  Trail rides and train rides tour the ranch.  A restaurant serves cowboy quisine, including buffalo steaks and burgers.

Our plan was to spend two nights at the ranch, taking the train tour out to the bison herd the day after we arrived, then to head out for Utah early Saturday morning.  Those plans changed when we discovered a propane leak.  Bill fought it all day Friday while I dealt with offers on the condo.  Since we missed the train tour Friday, we decided to go on the 9 AM ride Saturday, pull out at noon, and stop somewhere in the middle of Wyoming along I-80.

The train tour was fun. The engineer/tour guide told us the history of the ranch and the area and answered tons of questions.  Check out the slide show below.

Trip to Boise: Lone Jack to Minden

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Entrance to the Harold Warp Pioneer Museum

Yesterday was a little rainy - the coolest day we have seen in quite a while.  We left Lake Paradise Resort in Lone Jack, Missouri, at 11 AM and arrived in Minden, Nebraska, about 6:30 last night.   We came to Minden to visit the
Harold Warp Pioneer Village.  The entrance isn't very impressive, but the place is INCREDIBLE.

Harold Warp was born in a sod house near present-day Minden in 1903, the child of Norwegian immigrants.  He moved to Chicago in 1924 and turned a plastic window material he developed into a fortune. Warp Bros. is still doing business and has a presence on the internet.

When Harold Warp heard that the school he had attended as a child was to be destroyed, he bought it and began creating his Pioneer Village.  There are 25 buildings spread over several acres housing over 50,000 items showing the progress of life in the United States from pioneer days to the present.  Included are a frontier fort/log cabin, a sod house, the schoolhouse mentioned above, a general store, a train depot with two locomotives, a church, a livery stable, a fire house, a land office (the one where Harold's father filed his homesteading claim),  a firehouse, a Pony Express barn, a Pony Express station, a blacksmith shop, and many large warehouse type buildings housing a couple of Conestoga wagons, multiple horseless carriages, over 350 antique cars, several airplanes, hundreds of examples of farm machinery, horseless carriages, and many other thousands of historical items.

We wandered around in the village for about four hours and saw only a fraction of it.  A few of my pictures are included below.  For some better shots, click here.

Missouri Town 1855

It was finally down in the high 80's today, so we set out to visit Missouri Town 1855.  The reconstructed town is located in Fleming Park, a Jackson County Parks and Recreation facility near Lee's Summit, Missouri.  The park also includes two large lakes and a bison herd.

Over 25 antebellum buildings from various locations in Missouri were rescued from destruction, carefully dismantled, and reconstructed on 30 acres in the park.  Most of the buildings are furnished with period pieces.  Interpreters wander the town in period costumes and speak to you in character.  Sheep, chickens, and horses add to the ambiance.

We spent a couple of hours wandering the grounds.  I took about 40 pictures. Several  are included in this slide show.

Independence, Missouri

Pioneer Woman

Yesterday was another scorcher, but we had the wanderlust anyway.  We headed into Independence, Missouri, to visit the National Frontier Trails Museum.  An excellent movie there provided lots of information about how the West moved as the United States grew.  Exhibits depicted the travels of Louis and Clark and the travails of the pioneers that traveled west.  The Pioneer Woman statue is in a courtyard of the museum. She is carrying a pail in her right hand and a baby on her left shoulder

Independence Depot

This completely restored railroad depot stands on the grounds of the museum.

We took the Truman Trolley from the museum parking lot past several historic sites.  You can ride all day, getting off and on at the various stops, for one dollar - probably the best deal in Independence.  We were on the last run of the trolley loop for the day, so we just stayed aboard and listened to our tour guide point out the sites.

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Truman Home

We passed several sites having to do with Harry Truman, including the house he and Bess lived in, the church where they were married, the place he bought gas for his car, and the Truman Library.

A splinter group of Mormons stayed in Independence when the larger group headed to Utah.  A plot of land across the street from their very impressive church is believed by over 2 million people to be the place where Christ will return to earth to call the saints home.  (Sorry - no picture.)

Birthplace of Jesse James

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Riding in the truck is cooler than staying in the trailer, so yesterday we packed a picnic lunch and headed out to explore a bit. Our travels took us to Kearney, Missouri, not far from Kansas City, to visit the farm where the famous outlaw Jesse James was born.

Jesse's family was on the side of the Confederacy in the Civil War.  Jesse's older brother Frank joined a local militia immediately, then later became a member of Quantrill's Raiders.  When Jesse turned 16, he joined Frank in another guerrilla fighting group led by Fletch Taylor.

After the war ended, Jesse and Frank began a life of crime, including the first daylight bank robbery in the United States during peace time. Legend has it that their crime spree was directed at former Union supporters in retribution for the punishment of Confederate sympathizers.

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The farmsite includes the house where Jesse was born and raised, some reconstructed outbuildings, and a museum.  The original part of the house is a log cabin.  It was built around 1820, and is probably one of the oldest homes in the state of Missouri. The James family purchased it in the 1840's. The original farmstead covered about 250 acres.

 

Corner of house with siding removed

 Our tour guide led us through the house, which contains many period pieces, some of which were probably in the home during Jesse's lifetime.  Research has determined that the mantel over the fireplace is one such piece.


I took the picture that shows the corner of the original log cabin wall without its siding. 

Many James family memorabilia, including saddles and guns used by Jesse and Frank James and the boots Jesse was wearing when he was murdered, are housed in a museum on the farm.  A movie tells the story of the farm and the James family.  

When Jesse James was killed, his mother Zerelda had him buried on the property.  After his wife died, his remains were exhumed and buried next to her in a local cemetery.  Once his grave was no longer under the watchful eyes of his mother, souvenir hunters began chipping away the tombstone. What is left of it is on display in the museum.

Zerelda lived on the farm for many years, charging admission and conducting tours of the farm and home.

Trip to Boise: Crossville to Lone Jack

It's been a few days since my last post. We stayed in Crossville, Tennessee, a couple of extra days to be able to attend the funeral of the father of my best friend in Lawrenceville, Georgia - about a 4 hour drive away.

We left Crossville on Tuesday, August 4, and drove through incredible heat. When we stopped at a rest area in Paducah, Kentucky, the temperature was 105 degrees. We drove on another 45 minutes to
Whittington Woods Campground in Whittington, Illinois, and stayed the two hottest contiguous days and nights on record there without satellite reception due to the density of trees in the campground. Had to revert to the antenna for local channels only, but the shade helped.

During our full day in the area, we tried to locate Tom Ryan, a lost friend of Bill's whose last known address as of 1975 was in Benton, Illinois. Benton is a farming community of around 7,000 people a little south of Whittington. The last public hanging in Illinois occurred there in 1928, when Charlie Birger, a Prohibition gangster, was hanged for the murder of Joe Adams, the mayor of the nearby town of West City.

In 1963, George Harrison of the Beatles stayed at his sister's home in Benton while on vacation. The house has become the Hard Day's Night Bed and Breakfast. He also sat in with a local band, "The Four Vests," at the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in nearby Eldorado, Illinois.

In our search for Tom Ryan, we visited the Benton Chamber of Commerce, then the library, where we went back over old telephone books from the 1970's with no luck. Then we tried driving out to the Walmart off of I-57 where Bill had parked his 18-wheeler and Tom had picked him up by motorcycle in 1975. Bill remembered enough of the route of the motorcycle trip to get us to what he thought was the right area, but either his memory was wrong or the house had been torn down.

We left Whittington for the Lake Paradise RV Resort north of Lone Jack, Missouri, on Thursday, August 5. This is our second Coast-to-Coast campground. The site is on a hill with a great view of one of the many lakes in the campground. Nothing between us and the satellite but empty sky. Our only complaint is that the site is rather steep and rocky, so it took some doing to get the rig level.

We are staying here a total of 12 nights. We plan to poke around the Long Jack area while we are here. If we find anything interesting, I will post.

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