Nebraska – Bushnell to Lincoln
“Hey there neighbor, going my way east or west on the Lincoln Highway…”
(Theme Song for the Lincoln Highway Radio Show on NBC, 1940-1942)
It’s about 450 miles along the Lincoln from the state line at Pine Bluffs, Wyoming, to the Iowa state line outside of Omaha at the Missouri River. The Nebraska Lincoln Highway Historic Byway crosses the state (mostly along what is now US 30), and except for when I took the detour to the capital in Lincoln and got on I-80 for part of that, I stayed off the interstate and on the historic route of the highway through town and country for most of the drive across the state until I reached Omaha.
The Lincoln Highway is not forgotten in Nebraska: it is well signed, and there were old bridges, brick sections, murals, plaques, guideposts and much else commemorating the old road. I was struck by how much of the original red brick roadway survives. The first thing I saw in the state, in Bushnell, was one of the concrete markers. I think it was a replica but no matter. (Read more about them here.)
They seem to take the Lincoln Highway pretty seriously in the state.
Here’s a map of the old road across Nebraska.
As you can see from the map, it was a long drive. I needed to stay on course as much as I could. This was the point in the trip (during week eight on the road) when I really started to feel like getting home. Sadly, I did not make it to Carhenge in Alliance to the north of my route. It would have been about a 180 mile detour to and from my route along the Lincoln, and I had another detour to the south in mind to see the capital city, Lincoln. Too much driving. I was getting tired of it! It would have been a great companion stop, however, after seeing Cadillac Ranch on Route 66 in the Texas Panhandle. (My post of that is here.)
In this set we will get as far as the city of Lincoln. The next post will mostly be Omaha. I wanted to do the drive across the state in one post, but it’s too many photos for one post. Nebraska is a big state. Even in this first post I am going over my usual upper limit for photos.
Why so many Nebraska shots? It’s a great state for Lincoln Highway relics (and commemoration). Also, when I think about the most quintessentially Midwestern state on these incredible US journeys along both the length of the Lincoln (coast-to-coast) this year and last, and the length of Route 66 (Illinois to California) this year, my mind usually goes to the likes of Nebraska (or maybe Iowa). In God’s Country, indeed. My site is about the “roads less traveled”. Nebraska has an abundance of them.
Bill Bryson in The Lost Continent calls it the “the most unexciting of all the states”. I didn’t agree. Besides the amazing photography in the fading little towns there were many fine stops on the eastward journey – among them an original pony express station, an actual sod house, a surviving portion of the Oregon Trail, lots of classic old courthouses, grain silos of every imaginable shape and size, and even Buffalo Bill’s house. Well, I thought this was all exciting. I’ll concede that it was very quiet both on the road and in town. Not too many people (or cars). Sometimes I had the road completely to myself.
After the previous post I think I need to set the record straight about Nebraska. There’s no question that there is population loss in rural Nebraska, and it shows in the declining cities and towns in the plains there. Having said that there is much to like there, too. So the rule in this set is going to be no rusting old cars, abandoned buildings, boarded up storefronts or the like. I’ll try to share some less weathered impressions of the state. Not so dingy this time.
After crossing over from Wyoming near Bushnell, we will work our way eastward mostly through farming country and smaller towns.
Lincoln (this post) and Omaha (next post) were the only cities I saw with any real “pop” on the drive through the state, although there were a couple of very pleasant stops in smaller and medium sized towns and cities on the long drive. It wasn’t all main streets going through near death experiences. I can’t say that Grand Island was buzzing but it was a good stop just the same with an amazing movie palace and one of the finest 30s gas stations of the entire trip – and that is saying a lot. (Today’s factoid: Grand Island is the birthplace of Henry Fonda.) My favorite place along the way was Kearney which had a lot of life to it and definitely has found the secret sauce. Sidney and Gothenburg were fine stops as well. All these seemed to be hanging in there as were a number of other places on that long trip through the countryside.
I really enjoyed Lincoln and Omaha. I will write more about Omaha in the next post.
Lincoln had some amazing deco (also another future post) and was a very satisfying visit. I stayed in the Historic Haymarket District in Lincoln where there are a lot of old warehouses. (There’s a similar area in Omaha.) Now it’s lofts, restaurants, shops, hotels…very cool. The University of Nebraska and the football stadium are close by. It must be packed around there on game days. They take their football very seriously in Nebraska. Go Cornhuskers! The combination of the university and the capital surely help the economy of that city. It shows.
Highlights in this set are:
-The Fort Sidney Museum and Post Commander’s Home in Sidney (closed – like a lot of these attractions in these smaller cities and towns in March)
–California Hill (between Chappell and Ogallala – just before Brule) on the actual Oregon Trail which was climbed by thousands and thousands of emigrants heading west in their covered wagons (many to Oregon and California). Of course, I had to stop at a place called “California Hill” – I passed the sign and turned around after I saw it! It’s right by the old highway. Supposedly, trail ruts are visible in places but I did not see any. This is as good an example as any as to why it is necessary to get off the interstate.
– The historic 1885 Phelps Hotel in Big Springs – stay in the same rooms where railroad crews once rested between shifts!
-Scout’s Rest Ranch in North Platte (now Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park) – the “Mansion on the Prairie” – where William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody lived during the height of his fame, 1886-1913.
-also in North Platte, the delightfully hokey Fort Cody Trading Post – complete with a Muffler Man Native American and soldiers with arrows in their keisters! I had to take the pictures from the outside – yet another closed attraction. On a personal note, sadly, after almost two months of driving, this was my final Muffler Man of the road trip.
– Fort McPherson National Cemetery. I stopped to pay my respects, as I usually do at these National Cemeteries.
-the Sod House Museum on the approach to Gothenburg – what the Little House on the Prairie probably really looked like…it was the first time I had ever see one of those. It was complete with a fake buffalo and fake Native American on his fake horse just to the left of the barn. It’s a re-creation, but other than the wood at the roof line it seemed to be a good job. As to that nicely planed wood at the roof (or is it ply?), I don’t think Home Depot was around yet back when these were in vogue. (Miracle of miracles, there was also a little cafe/gift shop nearby with homemade muffins, cake, jams, honey and other goodies serving a very rare commodity on that drive: actual espresso.)
-also in Gothenburg – “the Pony Express Capital of Nebraska” – an original Pony Express station and log cabin. How cool is that? A little city park with a real, actual Pony Express stop. Sadly, also closed the day I drove by.
– the classic LR Ranch Motel in Lexington (apparently still open!), one of many old motels along the path of the old Lincoln
-Kearney (population 30,787 at the 2010 census and home to the University of Nebraska at Kearney) with my favorite Nebraska main street crossing the state, complete with red bricks and a great Lincoln Highway mural. Here’s a PAW (punching-above-weight) city on the Nebraska Lincoln Highway. Sip on the bricks! I didn’t know until later that Kearney is an important stop during the spring migration of sandhill cranes in the Central Nebraska Flyway as they make their way northward, and that March is when they are there in the Platte River Valley (right when I passed through). That would have been a sight. I have seen them in California near Lodi and covered that in an earlier post. Read more here about Kearney and the spring migration and check out the photos. Incredible.
-the gorgeous Grand Theater in Grand Island (1937) – this one is a deco beauty.
-also in Grand Island the classic 1930s Kensinger’s Service and Supply gas station: still family owned, still pumping gas and still full service. Still closed, too, on Sundays apparently (which was the day I was there).
– Just around back from Kensinger’s in Grand Island is an original “Seedling Mile” on the Lincoln Highway, completed November 3, 1915. Grand Island was the second city in the United States to build the model concrete roadway for the Lincoln. This is the only surviving original stretch of concrete surface in the entire country.
-Lastly, Lincoln, the state’s second largest city (founded in 1856 as Lancaster and renamed Lincoln in 1867 to honor the slain president when Lancaster became Nebraska’s state capital). The pics include the former CB&Q depot—known as Lincoln Station—from 1927, the wonderful historic warehouse district, some downtown shots, some of the many fine historic homes and churches there, Memorial Stadium, the deco capitol building, the Daniel Chester French Lincoln statue at the capitol (1912 – predating the capitol complex which was built over a ten year period 1922-1932), and more.
I will have many more photos of the deco capitol in the upcoming Nebraska deco post!
On to Omaha now.
