•  Registration

What to Expect

California provides Lincoln Highway adventures unlike any others this side of Times Square. Entering California at two points, the Abraham Lincoln Memorial Highway climbs a granite escarpment surrounded by the natural scenic splendor of the majestic snow capped Sierra Nevada. Descending the deep canyoned western slopes, the highway winds down through colorfully picturesque California Gold Rush towns, lending a bucolic charm to the drive. Crossing through the bountiful golden Sacramento Valley and over the great waterways of San Francisco Bay, the highway makes its final climb through the legendary hills of San Francisco. Finally, ascending upon the green bluff of Lincoln Park at the trail's end, the Lincoln Highway traveler is fulfilled and awed while bathing in the brilliance of golden orange from the setting sun reflecting off the Pacific Ocean below.

Location

The conference will center around the Sacramento area. Sacramento is the hub city of the Lincoln Highway. The north and south routes, around Lake Tahoe, of the Lincoln Highway converge in Sacramento. The 1913-26 alignment leaving Sacramento heads south towards Altamont Pass before turning towards the San Francisco Bay area. The 1927 alignment leaving Sacramento heads westerly directly for San Francisco via the Carquinez Straits Bridge.

Tours

The first tour, over the easterly route out of Sacramento, is on the historical transportation corridor used by the Overland Emigrant Trail (Donner Trail), 1844-1846; the Dutch Flat Wagon Road, 1863-1869; the Transcontinental Railroad, 1869 to present; the Lincoln Highway, 1913-1927; the Victory Highway, 1919; U.S. 40, 1926-1962; and now Interstate 80. Along the route, pieces of the original 14-foot concrete pavement are still visible and in service today. You can see places where former pavement, complete with center line stripes, disappears under freeway embankments, into berry bushes and through front yards. The road goes through several old foothill communities of the California Gold Rush era. At Big Bend is a museum exhibit of authentic Lincoln Highway memorabilia, where a replica "Boy Scout" marker was set in 1999. Hikers will have the opportunity to walk down the east face of Donner Pass and over the glaciated granite that the old highway once did. Please wear sturdy shoes. The trip will culminate with a tour over the seldom-seen Dog Valley Road highlands portion, not used by the Lincoln Highway since 1926.

The second tour, on the 1927 alignment westerly out of Sacramento, will take us over the Yolo Bypass trestle mentioned by Bernard Queneau in his diary of the 1928 Boy Scout advance party. Original Lincoln Highway concrete markers will be seen in the towns of Davis, Vacaville, and San Francisco. This will be your last opportunity to cross over the Carquinez Straits Bridge that allowed the new shorter route into San Francisco in 1927. A new bridge is under construction and the old is to be removed. We will visit the most westerly extant Lincoln Highway marker in San Francisco. This marker is pristine and little known, being completely engulfed in shrubbery. Then we'll set a replica Western Terminus Lincoln Highway Marker in Lincoln Park, San Francisco. The day's tour will culminate with a visit and western Barbecue at the Towe Automotive Museum in Sacramento.

Seminars

You'll get to hear from:

• Norman Root, a California State Bridge Engineer talking about "Bridges of the Lincoln Highway in California"
• Shirley Rowe, granddaughter of R. Robinson Rowe who actually drove the Lincoln Highway in 1915 to the Panama Pacific Exposition, about his diary, "Ten Rowes are Fifteeners"
• Bill Roe, who bicycled the Lincoln Highway in 1999 and wrote All the Way to Lincoln Way
• George Clark, post card collector, showing scenes of the Lincoln Highway ferries on San Francisco Bay, "Ferry Tales"
• Phil Sexton, USFS talking about Lincoln Highway interpretive projects at Big Bend
• Dana Supernowicz, showing 1915 film footage along the "The Pioneer Branch"
• Jerry Fisher, author of The Pacesetter, biography of Carl Fisher.

Workshops

Workshop sessions will include presentations and discussions about: mapping projects, staging vintage auto tours, and developing monuments and signage.

Displays

Outdoor displays of antique road building equipment and vintage automobiles are expected. Indoors will be numerous scrap books and photo albums as well as book and souvenir sales.