One of the most iconic bridges in the 3,389 mile length of the historic transcontinental Lincoln Highway is in Tama, Iowa, and its structural integrity is in need of repair. As manager of the Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway, Prairie Rivers of Iowa has been working with the City of Tama to restore and protect the bridge, but process delays and COVID have slowed progress to a near standstill.
The Tama Lincoln Highway bridge holds an important place in the history of transportation in our country. It was constructed in 1915 when Woodrow Wilson was President of the United States and before we got tangled up in World War I. It was the year Babe Ruth hit his first career home run. Half of the US population lived on the farm, and most transportation was still by foot or horse. The Model T was popular and promised increased mobility but roads could be treacherous, especially after a rain.
The idea for the first improved transcontinental highway generated support across the country and gave birth to the Lincoln Highway Association. Towns along the roadway’s charted path were grateful for the honor, anticipating an influx of travelers and hence growth in commerce.
Tama’s now-famous bridge was constructed to attract interest and burnish the town’s image as a destination. Designed by Iowa Highway Commission architect Paul N. Kingsley, the Lincoln Highway Bridge is distinctive for spelling out the name of the roadway in its railings. Concrete lampposts topped by globe lights decorated the bridge’s four corners, adding to its graceful charm.
The Tama bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, nominated by the Tama Bicentennial Commission. The nomination included a quote from the July 1919 Lincoln Highway Forum, a publication of the Lincoln Highway Association, asserting that the bridge is “a good example of up-to-date highway advertising. Tourists over this section of the famous road cannot fail to be impressed with the advertising values as well as the pleasing and distinctive appearance of this unique feature of bridge construction.”
While the bridge has continued to attract admirers over the years, time has taken its toll. Prairie Rivers of Iowa has worked with the City of Tama to assess the integrity and safety of the bridge and put together a plan for its restoration. In 2018 PRI applied for and received a grant from the state Historical Resource Development Program of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs to help cover the costs. Additional support and funding has come from the Iowa Lincoln Highway Association, the Mansfield Foundation, and other donors, but a series of delays and the advent of COVID have held up progress. In October of this year, the Iowa DOT informed Tama that Iowa Code necessitates yet another delay to gather additional information and rebid the work. Meanwhile, the original cost estimate of $115,000 has mushroomed to over $300,000.
The Tama-Toledo News Chronicle reported in October that the City of Tama is planning to re-bid the project and complete the repair by August 2022, but the situation is being closely monitored by PRI, the Iowa Lincoln Highway Association, and history buffs across the nation.
Can you believe that summer is already coming to a close? There’s no better way to end the season than with a tour around the most scenic overlooks and hiking spots all throughout the state of Iowa. Whether you’re traveling with family, friends or by yourself – these are locations you won’t want to skip!
In addition, the Iowa State Fair is set to begin on August 12 and run through the month, but there are several other events happening on and around each of the Scenic Byways in Iowa, too. Pick an event, pick a byway or pick a destination… you won’t be disappointed.
Ledges State Park Boone, Iowa
Overlooks & Scenic Views
From east to west and north to south, our state is filled with the most beautiful locations and hidden gems. Take a look at each of these featured spots along all of the Iowa byways. Where are you going next? Click Here for August’s Featured Locations!
There’s town celebrations, farmers markets, and fun scheduled all month long. Take a look at the calendar of events for what’s coming in August. Click Here for August Events!
by Prairie Rivers of Iowa Board President, Reed Riskendahl
Our Lincoln Highway and the Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway – a National Scenic Byway. It is not like they belong to us, but we do get mighty possessive over things. It is more as if we belong to them. They are in our very being. So much so that we take it for granted.
The path of the Lincoln takes a meandering path through Marshalltown and Marshall County. Many times, I have found that “L” designation on a street or paved road where I didn’t expect it.Nevertheless, I have not always paid attention, when it runs on a street that I have frequented thousands of times over the last 30+ years.
Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway Marshalltown, Iowa
You see, I have worked in several businesses that actually are on the Lincoln. Here in Marshalltown, the Lincoln runs right down Main Street – right beside our courthouse. The business district runs on Main Street from 3rd Avenue to 3rd Street, with several other nearby streets. Several decades ago, I worked in Spurgeon’s Department Store. It was one of dozens throughout the Midwest that were located in county seat towns. The location was a good one – directly north of the courthouse, with its stately appearance and grand history. The amount of traffic was substantial, and I recall sweeping the sidewalk daily, and washing the windows so folks could see the latest fashion for the family or the home. Thousands of dresses, shoes for the family, sheets for the beds, yarn and crafts for those talented with a needle. That era has passed, but the Lincoln – America’s Main Street is as important as ever.
I also had the pleasure of working at the Times-Republican newspaper. We were a daily and the unrelenting deadlines gave us a certain rhythm that is important in a small city. News of the realm, as well as solid local coverage gave the paper a readership that many of the businesses close to the Lincoln wanted to advertise in. Stores like Gildner’s Men’s Store, Thompson True Value, Hellberg’s Jeweler’s, Zeno’s Pizza, Taylor’s Maid-Rite and hundreds more.
Over the years, after traveling, I would return to Marshalltown along the Lincoln. The beautiful canopy of trees along west Main St on the Lincoln just said “home” to me. The shade was welcoming. Some trees remain, even after the terrible tornado that ravished our city in 2018, and the derecho of 2020 took even more.
But the Lincoln still is here. A testament to the ebbs and flows of events and culture in our history. No longer is it the primary conduit from one place to another. Sometime along this treasured history, it has become a place to experience life at a different pace. Sometimes ignored by the pell-mell pace of today’s life, but sometimes a pleasure to behold, thinking of the decades that have passed and what this old road has experienced.
Take a trip down the Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway, slow the pace a bit, and pull off occasionally to simply witness America’s Main Street. You may even see some of the many stories that are yet to be told.
During National Dairy this June, there are plenty of opportunities to enjoy your favorite sweet treat while traveling along the 460 miles of Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway – A National Scenic Byway in Iowa. Starting in Clinton and working your way across the state to Council Bluffs there are plenty of family-owned shops to stop at and delight in a tasty ice cream treat!
How about weighing in on who’s going to win the rumble between Superman ice cream and Cookie Monster ice cream while at Carol’s Original Dairy Treat in Clinton? Then stop further down the road at Smillee’s Ice cream in DeWitt and taste their super-premium chocolate.
Small family-owned Parlor City Ice Cream has served up unique treats like their Smores and Thin Mint sundaes in Cedar Rapids and Marion for over fifty years! From there drive over to Tama’s Dairy Sweet Treats (formerly the Sugar Shack) and have a Daisy’s Twister.
Head further west to Starbuck’s Drive-In in Nevada, family-owned not the chain, for flavors like blackberry, key lime, and strawberry.
Stop in Jefferson for a triple threat that features twins. How’s that for a twister? You can’t beat a root beer float from A & W, then stop at Twiins Shoppe (yes two ii’s) for a goodie, and finish up your visit at Ice Cube Concessions and Skating Rink in Spring Lake County Park for some hand-dipped Ashby’s Sterling Ice Cream before you strap on your roller skates!
The Dairy Mart in Glidden boasts “Good Food and Better Ice Cream” while Nutshelle’s Dairy Sweet in Woodbine has malts, shakes, sundaes, floats, and cones along with pints and quarts to take home and savor!
Finally, you reach Council Bluffs on Iowa’s western border where Christy Crème, a true neighborhood mom and pop locally-owned since 1954 rotates ten different flavors of sherbet daily. Whatever your sweet tooth desires, you cannot go wrong with this lineup!
The long awaited announcement came the morning of February 16th, 2021 that the Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway has been given the designation of a National Scenic Byway! This was a long-awaited award and work towards it began in 2016 when working on the Corridor Management Plan (CMP)and talked about even prior to that.
The Lincoln Highway, although the first improved transcontinental road in the nation, is a fairly newer byway in Iowa. The Department of Transportation’s Scenic Byway program is over 20 years old. The Lincoln Highway was nominated by the Iowa Lincoln Highway Association and brought into the fold as a state byway in 2006 (making it 15 years in 2021).
Woodbine’s bricked Lincoln Highway
A byway is made up of 6 intrinsic qualities: archaeological, cultural, historic, natural, recreational, and scenic. The Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway’s main quality is historic and we focus on that aspect in many of our programs and marketing materials. To be a National Scenic Byway one of these qualities needs to be of high value and the route has to already be recognized as a state byway through their DOT.
The Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway Corridor Management Plan (CMP).
As part of Prairie Rivers of Iowa’s agreement with the Iowa DOT to manage this byway, we created a CMP using criteria set out by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). We held community meetings and visited with residents, government officials (local, county, and state) and other organizations to see what amenities existed in each of the intrinsic qualities. Our plan gathered ideas and feelings of the 13 counties and 43 communities our byway ties together as we prepared our to-do lists of projects. One of the topics, and identified as a state-wide project, was for the Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway to apply to be a National Scenic Byway.
There was only one small problem. The National Scenic Byway program was sitting on FHWA’s shelf. It was still a program, but was not active and not being funded. It wasn’t revived until 2020 when the program welcomed new designations (no funding included). The stars had aligned for us- the Scenic Byway program was revived and taking applications, we had a completed our CMP, we also had an Interpretive Master Plan, and we had overwhelming support of our communities to make this application. See https://www.prrcd.org/lincoln-highway-corridor-management-plan/for the full CMP.
Once the work began in earnest on the multi-page application, we needed to identify 8 important locations that supported our chosen “Historic” quality. It was difficult to narrow the choices down to just 8 and even them out across Iowa to show an accurate impression of the Lincoln Highway route in Iowa.
The locations chosen were:
The Sawmill Museum, Clinton
Youngville Cafe, rural Benton County
Preston’s Station Historic District, Belle Plaine
Lincoln Highway Bridge, Tama
Reed-Niland Corner, Colo
Carroll Railroad Depot, Carroll
Brick Street, Woodbine
Harrison County Historical Village and Welcome Center, Missouri Valley
Youngville Cafe, rural Benton County, is on the National Register of Historic Places. Built by Joe Young in his pasture for his widowed daughter to operate the gas station, cafe, and cabins. She and her children lived upstairs.
Also included in the application was a route map and a turn-by-turn description of the 460+ mile Iowa Byway route, traveler information about nearby airports and interstates/highways, restroom availability, brochures and marketing materials that are available, etc. It was a very intensive application and took a team to write it and to create the map.
Our application was reviewed and submitted in June 2020 by the Iowa DOT and then the waiting began. FHWA said in late summer 2020 that they had made their recommendations to the Office of Administration and Office of Transportation for them to review and approve the list. Approval finally happened on January 19, 2021 but the announcement not made until February 16th.
We are so excited to embark on this new journey as a National Scenic Byway and the exposure we will receive now on a national level. Even during a pandemic, we have been delighted to see visitors check-in to locations in our new passport program with Travel Iowa. This program rolled out in January 2020 and will run for a year. All eight of the above locations are, or will be, a part of this passport program. It’s another way we encourage people to travel and learn more about this historic road.
We’ll see you on the Byway – now a NATIONAL Scenic Byway!
The Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway managed by the not-for-profit Prairie Rivers of Iowa has received a tourism grant from the Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce to create and install an interpretive panel at the Marshall County Courthouse.
The panel will provide travelers along the byway with historical information about the courthouse’s site selection, original construction and dedication in 1866, the subsequent addition of the clock tower in 1900 and more. The recent history surrounding courthouse damage and repairs due to the 2018 tornado and 2020 derecho, including the March 31, 2020 return of the dome as Marshalltown Strong onlookers cheered on, will be featured as well.
The return of the Marshalltown County Courthouse dome on March 31, 2020 after some repair and restoration. Photo by Andrew Potter/Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce.
The chamber grant is being leveraged with grants from Union Pacific and Humanities Iowa to help complete the project according to Prairie Rivers of Iowa’s Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway Coordinator Jan Gammon. “We’ve been working for a while now to make this project a reality to help increase the number of byway travelers to Marshall County while encouraging them to stop and embrace its rich history,” says Gammon.
“We are excited to support this project and look forward to seeing it as a great addition to our Marshall County Courthouse and the Marshalltown downtown,” said Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce Tourism Director Andrew Potter, “We have always cherished our Lincoln Highway tradition here and this project will ensure that will continue into the future.”
The not-for-profit Prairie Rivers of Iowa has managed the Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway for nearly fifteen years promoting historic preservation and economic development along Iowa’s 460-mile route that includes welcoming communities like Marshalltown. Future plans encompass the hope of obtaining National Scenic Byway designation while continuing to improve preservation, interpretation and recreation efforts for the benefit of travelers and the communities they visit.
Funding for the Lincoln Highway Heritage Byway Marshall County Courthouse interpretive panel was received in part from Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce Tourism.
