Bricks from the past - Ligonier, IN
Posted by: 
DnRseekers
N 41° 26.165 W 085° 35.167
16T E 618123 N 4588132
A rural and almost forgotten piece of the original brick surfaced road. Visit it soon, the adjacent section has already been removed!
Waymark Code: WMC39W
Location: Indiana, United States
Date Posted: 07/19/2011
Views: 10
This is a little section of the northern alignment of the Lincoln Highway that has almost been forgotten. It is rural and will give you the feel of what traveling the highway was like nearly a hundred years ago. No road signs, no cars whizzing by, just a piece of the road as it was, frozen in time.
For years I have known about it but no markers existed. Fortunately some have been placed here now. As far as I know this is the only section of the highway still in original brick in the area. The nearby road is now state highway 5 but due to straightening and reduction of hard curves this section of the original Lincoln Highway was saved and realistically never seen much use since it was abandoned. It now serves as access to a couple of homes but otherwise lies quiet and undisturbed from its model T days. It is still public roadway and located out in the country. No plaques yet decorate the spot but hopefully there will be someday. We really don't have much of the original old brick road left up here in Indiana.
While you are here you will find a "bump" off the road not to far away at 41.435191 85.587456. Up until the early 1990's this was a the second part of this alignment that could be seen and still had the original brick surface. It was paved over then shortly afterwards eventually just removed entirely. Right now you will find the gravel from the road bed but all the pavers are gone. Before long it will have just faded into history as vegetation begins to take it over.
As a side note, this brick surface really is special around these parts. Not far from here in Syracuse IN was the Portland Cement Company and back in those days the area was famous because all the county rural roads were "paved" in cement when other counties were of course just mud. The Lincoln was of course redone in cement as well since this was "the" highway of the times. This little section was actually saved because of cementing of the Lincoln Highway. Had the road not been straightened and this section abandoned back then the bricks surely would have been removed and replaced by the more durable cement..., that is now all gone. Sometimes old is better....
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