Lincoln Highway Association California
Lincoln Highway Association
California

Quarterly Chapter Meeting Minutes – Saturday, April 2, 2022

Duarte Garage and Lincoln Highway Museum
Livermore, California

  1. Introductions [Joel Windmiller] and attendance [Paulette Johnson]
    1. Attendance: 30
    2. Ken
      • history teacher in Marin County and saw a sign on a hike. Found Trey’s blog and following up at a meeting.
    3. Nancy
      • Was driving to Tahoe on US 50 and saw the bridge. After the fire, she started seeing all sorts of things. She heard from Trey after she posted some pictures.
    4. Julie
      • Nevada member for years and now she lives in California, so she is contributing to the California chapter.
  2. Meritorious Achievement Award [Joel]
    1. Neil Rodrigues
      • Neil is a regular contributor to our Lincoln Highway Association, the chapter’s representative at the National level, and has most recently taken on the task of organizing the LH Conference in 2023. He is constantly promoting the Lincoln Highway wherever he goes, regularly speaks to groups about the LH, and is involved in car clubs and motorcycle clubs. Congratulations, Neil!
  3. Presentation: Michael Lynch
  4. Approval of January 2022 Meeting Minutes
    1. Paul Gilger motioned to approve the January 2022 minutes.
    2. Trey Pitsenberger seconded the motion.
    3. Motion passed with no changes needed.
  5. Officer and committee reports
    1. Neil Rodrigues: State Director
      1. Surprised to be awarded the LHA CA Chapter 2022 Meritorious Achievement award.
      2. On February 2, Neil gave a Lincoln Highway presentation to the Vintage Chevrolet Club of America, Greater South Bay Region Chapter. Members hope to travel portions of the Lincoln Highway on their way to their National meeting in Bowling Green, Kentucky in July. This car club chapter was also so impressed with the Lincoln Highway and him, they asked him to join! So he did. This chapter hopes that he will introduce a Lincoln Highway tour for them in California, in the near future.
      3. Announced a reminder of the LHA 2022 National Conference in Joliet, Illnois on June 20–24
        1. Drives on the Dixie Highway and Lincoln Highway on June 18 and 19, respectively. Paperwork available if you are attending the conference. You can also sign up online.
      4. LHA 2023 Conference in California will be Monday, June 12 to Friday, June 16.
        1. Identified necessary aspects of the conference which we need to start planning for.
        2. Identified central location of interest as being in eastern Sacramento area, such as Folsom.
        3. Considering options for host hotel, optional hotels, and smaller motels.
      5. Attended the teleconferenced LHA National board meeting held on March 3. National items Neil spoke on were:
        1. LHA National Budget: To cut costs, the Forum will be reduced to 40 pages, and subscribers will be given an option to receive an electronic copy.
        2. LHA National offered state chapters a stimulus program option. The California chapter declined this option.
      6. The William G. Pomeroy Foundation has a Historical Marker grant program. Our chapter will pursue this program to place free metal historical interpretive marker signs at significant places along the Lincoln Highway.
      7. Announced Trey Pitsenberger as our LHA Public Relations Point of Contact.
      8. Announced that the Lincoln Highway Association is not to be termed Lincoln Highway Association “Inc”.
      9. The Franklin Grove, Illinois building housing our tourism headquarters reopened on April 1.
      10. The Tama Lincoln Highway bridge in Iowa was under threat to torn down to widen the road. However, at this time the bridge will remain in place.
      11. Mentioned that the Preserving the Historic Road International Conference will be held in Portland, Oregon on September 22–24.
    2. Joel Windmiller: President
      1. Clarksville Days has been cancelled because Betty January, co-founder of the Clarksville Region Historical Society, has had some health issues. There are discussions of Joel and Moe Mohanna stepping in to keep the event going in the future. We would like to help the society keep this event going. Trey would like to shoot for 2023. We will start by contacting the sponsors of previous events to see who is willing to help keep this going.
      2. Lake Street in San Francisco is going to be a pedestrian slow street. We are hoping to get a plaque put up that will help the pedestrians understand the historical significance of this walkway. There was a discussion around whether to have single plaque or multiple plaques. This may be a good section for Pomeroy Foundation historical signs.
      3. Lincoln Highway Roadway Painting project: There was discussion about having the “L” painted on the pavement on Bass Lake and Old Tong Road, and then expand this program to other counties and cities. We’re hoping that Caltrans will pick up on this and help.
      4. At the January meeting, Trey Pitsenberger had made a motion to purchase a set of 14 books by Gregory Franzwa off eBay. The partial set was on display at today’s meetings. These will be kept with our historical archive.
    3. Trey Pitsenberger: Vice President
      1. Caltrans right-of-way map helped him and Monica find the second lodge in Strawberry. The buildings were not there, but you could see remnants of what was there originally.
      2. Also in attendance was the bronze base of the flagpole that was outside the Legion of Honor in San Francisco: “END OF THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY”. The seller would not tell the story of how it came to be in his father’s garage, but we are thankful to have it returned to the association. It was cool. (If you missed the meeting, it’s too bad you didn’t see it.) The artifact will be on display at the 2023 conference.
      3. Trey and Monica also brought a piece of concrete from the Lincoln Highway that was built by convicts of Folsom Prison. (Now I bet you are really mad you didn’t come to this meeting.)
    4. Trey Pitsenberger: Signage/Traveler/Chapter Historian
      1. Ophir Road Monument near Auburn: The Lincoln Highway sports a beautiful red “L” Lincoln Highway sign, except the “L” should be blue. The sign will be fixed, so get up there and see it while it lasts.
      2. Lincoln Highway in California book project: Trey was able to contact someone from Arcadia, who was excited about publishing Gary Kinst’s manuscript. Trey will be contacting Gary’s family to ask permission to publish his manuscript. Grant is keeping track of the money that was donated to help get this published. He has played the horses a bit and has improved the pot.
      3. Amol Towles was on CBS Saturday Morning talking about his book The Lincoln Highway. He talked about how the Lincoln Highway became a character in his book. We got to see the clip. You really should have been here today. (Video on YouTube)
      4. Local Consul of the Lincoln Highway: Would you be interested in being in charge of watching a section of the Lincoln Highway in our state? Trey is looking for people to be keepers of the highway. You would be in charge of signing and letting us know what is going on within your section of the Lincoln Highway.
    5. Grant Gassman: Treasurer’s report
      1. Deposit: $256
      2. Dispersements — Franzwa books: $300. This meeting: $350. Jimmy for three years of Internet domains (including calincolnhighway.org): $386.74. Balance: Contact chapter (some of which is money donated for the publishing of Gary Kinst’s book).
    6. Paulette Johnston: Secretary
      1. No report submitted.
    7. Mark Hoffman: Tours
      1. Contacted Rancho Cordova for possible help with the convention in 2023
    8. Jimmy Lin: Website report given by Trey
      1. Jimmy is still redesigning our website.
      2. Traveler: there is work toward moving the Traveler to be a webpage as opposed to PDF so that more links can be on this section. We are also looking at sending out a whole Traveler issue to your email.
      3. We are getting more hits on the website, maps, and homepage. We suspect a lot of this is due to Amor Towles’ book.
      4. Visits to the California chapter and The Traveler have dropped.
      5. Visit our Facebook page often as you can. Clicks are our friends.
    9. Members: Neil Rodrigues presented
  6. Old business (included in officer and committee reports)
    1. Ophir Road Monument LH sign replacement [Trey]
    2. LH Historical Book Project [Trey]
    3. Signage/Markers [Trey]
    4. 2022 Illinois Conference [Neil]
    5. 2023 Sacramento Conference [Neil]
  7. New business (included in officer and committee reports)
    1. Lincoln Highway roadway painting project [Joel]
    2. National Board Spring meeting [Neil]
    3. 1917 LH Bronze Plaque on display [Trey]
    4. 2022 Eastern Third Tour [Paul Gilger]
      1. June 12–20: New York to Joliet
      2. Paul outlined the highlights of the tour.
    5. 2022 LH Coach Tours [Mark Hoffmann]
      • No 2022 coach tours currently scheduled
  8. Meeting adjournment:
    1. Greg Gassman motioned to adjourn.
    2. Grant Gassman seconded.
    3. Motion passed.
  9. Next Meeting: July 9 at Donner Ski Ranch at the Old 40 Bar and Grill

Respectfully submitted by
Paulette Johnston, Secretary
June 7, 2022

Edited by President Joel Windmiller and Website editor Jimmy Lin

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