The Lincoln Highway was the first transcontinental highway built in 1913. Boy Scouts erected markers, like this one in Lyman, around 1928. HERALD PHOTO/Erin Buller

People from Omaha, Neb., Sarasota, Fla., Reno, Nev., and even small European countries found common ground last week learning about the history of southwest Wyoming and the route of the historic Lincoln Highway, which meanders through much of Uinta County and northern Utah.

With historic tidbits about the railway underpass off of Front Street and the historic Sunset Cabins on Bear River Drive, the Lincoln Highway Association Conference-goers embarked on their east tour on Friday.

The Lincoln Highway was the first transcontinental highway with a route that spanned from New York to Los Angeles in 1913. The association holds a conference for history enthusiasts and members each year in a different city along the route.

This year was the first time Evanston has hosted the five-day conference.

Last Tuesday more than 150 individuals converged on Evanston to learn more about the Lincoln Highway and some of the history of southwest Wyoming.

Association members attend the yearly conference to “discover more of the original Lincoln Highway,” said Jane Whiteley from Centennial, Colo.

“The highway varies from state to state and we come to see more the United States,” Whiteley said.

She said the speakers she heard in Evanston were “wonderful.”

“They taught a great deal about this area,” she said. “My favorite part was the roundhouse.”

Conference-goers toured the roundhouse and railyards on Tuesday and toured the highway as it went west into Utah on Wednesday. On Thursday, seminars were set up with topics like how travelers rested and refueled in such rural areas like Wyoming and stories about the 1908 Utah leg of the New York-Paris Automobile Race.

Then on Friday, a bright, sunfilled day, the group boarded school buses for the east tour, along mostly gravel and dirt roads in Bridger Valley, Granger and Little America.

The group stopped in Lyman at the Experimental Farm for lunch and to view a highway marker in its original location — not a common sight these days, said Karl Teller of Spinnerstown, Pa.

“In 1913 people started to get automobiles and wanted to drive, but they didn’t have any roads,” Teller, an LHA member since 1997, said. “The Lincoln Highway was an option for people to drive their cars.”

Teller, a self proclaimed “hobo,” said the route became U.S. 30 in 1925 because the government needed everything to have numbers. Then in 1928 the Boy Scouts put in markers.

“The highway sort of lost its identity,” he said. “There are very few markers left. Only about 300-400 of more than 3,000 they put in.”

He said he’s been to every conference since 1999 and his motivation for coming to the conference every year is to meet old and new friends, yes, but also to help preserve what history the highway has left.

“A lot of things in America are torn down or going away,” he said. “We’re moving too fast and want new things. We just want to save, preserve what’s left of the Lincoln Highway. It’s a vanishing hunk of American history.”



More than American history

And it’s not just Americans who become history “nuts.”

Tyge Jantzen from Sellnnlingerberg, Luxemburg said he’s been attending the conference every year since 1999.

He said his fascination with American history began 15 years ago when he and his family were planning a vacation to the United States.

“On television we saw a documentary on Route 66,” he said.

Jantzen said he became enthralled and planned that year’s family vacation to travel the entire Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles.

“It was very impressive to travel Route 66,” he said. “So we came again the next year. We began to meet a lot of people and year after year went back on Route 66 on vacations.”

Jantzen said he and his wife and sons traveled the route seven or eight times. Then he began to think “there must be other routes to travel,” he said.

Jantzen said a friend they’d made along Route 66 told them about the Lincoln Highway, and the rest is history, as they say.

“In 1998 we planned another tour to America with our five children and did the whole road,” Jantzen said.

He said since then he became a member of the LHA and attends every conference, sometimes with his wife and sometimes alone.

But this world traveler said America is not his only obsession.

“I’ve been in 80 different countries and all the United States except Hawaii,” he said. “I’ve seen more of America than most Americans.”



One LHA speaker

A grant from the Wyoming Arts Council brought Eastern Shoshone Willie LeClair to speak at the Lincoln Highway Conference.

In traditional dress, LeClair spoke about living on the Wind River Reservation, which the Eastern Shoshone share with the Northern Arapaho, who had been their traditional enemies before coming to the reservation.

“We’re survivors,” LeClair said. “We’re going to be here forever.”

As a sovereign nation inside a nation, they have their own government of elected tribe members. LeClair talked about how important education is and the priority they put in schools.

“You’re not going to get anywhere without an education,” LeClair said. “We have to make the best of what we’ve got left.”

The traditions of the 2,500 Shoshones are passed down verbally, and they keep the ceremonies alive. They use sweet sage, sweet grass, and cedar in their ceremonies and LeClair brought items to display. He had examples of the Shoshone rose that is embroidered in many items.

LeClair said the Shoshone were the “weaver people” and displayed Shoshone handicrafts during his talk.

“Don’t lose your background,” LeClair said. “Don’t lose your heritage.”

LeClair said there are differences in culture, like the idea of “ladies first,” whereas the Shoshone believe if the man goes first he can protect the woman from stepping in a hole or getting bitten by a snake.

But even with the differences, we are all part of the human race, not a race of color.

“We can’t go back and undo the past,” LeClair said.

LeClair said the pioneers were the makers of our country, and to imagine what they went through to build the Lincoln Highway and the railroad that passes through Evanston.



To reenact a military convoy

A barbecue dinner was held Friday evening at the Sunset Cabins on Bear River Drive. Two cabin doors were opened to give attendees the opportunity to see what they were like inside when travelers on the Lincoln Highway would stop for the night. Conference coordinator Shelley Horne said they had close to 150 in attendance at the conference.

At the cabins, a restored Jeep was on display for the Military Vehicle Preservation Association (MVPA). Ernie Covington from the MVPA came to the conference to talk to people about the 90th Anniversary Convoy that will take place next year.

“I thought this would be a good place to shake hands,” Covington said.

The reenactment of the 1919 convoy route will begin in June at Washington, D.C., and arrive in San Francisco in July. They are expecting more than 150 historic military vehicles to participate.

Covington said he has been researching how the convoy was received in the many towns it passed through, and said he will send Evanston’s story to the Herald before the convoy begins.

For more information about MVPA and the convoy, go to mvpaconvoy.org.

A PBS documentary, “A ride along the Lincoln Highway,” featuring this year’s conference in Evanston, will air at 8 p.m. on October 29.