Having heard there was a Lincoln Highway Welcome Center in Jefferson, Iowa we stopped and had a look. The Center was easy enough to find, just a half-block from the central square. Kenny Russell was in charge and said his partner, Bob Owens, would be there the next day when a group of people doing the 2nd Iowa River to River tour of the Lincoln Highway would be stopping on their way from Desoto Bend on the Missouri to Clinton on the Mississippi.

The tour wasn't to arrive until the next day so we asked Kenny if he knew of any campgrounds where we could stay the night. He said there was one on the Racoon River south of town. No trouble finding it. As we pulled in, Dan Sayal, the caretaker, flagged us down and said it was a state park and the charge was $10 a night which included electricity. Sounded OK.

Dan Sayal, State Park Caretaker, Jefferson, Iowa

After we got set up, we talked with Dan, who said his Dad was in the Navy and he'd lived in New Jersey until he was 13 when his family moved to Iowa. He liked Iowa as it wasn't so crowded and he could easily go hunting and fishing. His wife, Betsy, is half Japanese: her father was from Iowa and met her mother during his military service in Japan.

We got talking about how much water there was in Iowa compared to Nebraska. Dan said the ground in Iowa holds water better, thus there are a lot of marshy areas. While the area we were camped in was above the river, Dan showed us the tops of a row of fence posts that only showed a short distance above the ground: he'd put them in place some 10 years ago but they'd been covered by the almost annual flooding of the Raccoon. He said there were two kinds of grass that covered all of the prairie before it was turned into farmland: Iowa had tall grass, higher than a man, while Nebraska had short grass and grizzly bears used to live there.

THE NEXT MORNING WE WENT TO THE WELCOME CENTER early to talk with Bob and Kenny before the people on the tour arrived.

Left to right, Bob Owens, Kenny Russell, Lincoln Highway Welcome Center, Jefferson, Iowa

Bob said he was an auto parts salesman during his working life where he learned that "You had to get their confidence" if you wanted to have a long-term customer. This morphed into an interest in the Lincoln Highway and the Welcome Center is a kind of mini-museum of artifacts, many of which have stories, the most interesting being the Lost Head of Lincoln.

When the Highway was being put together, James "Lost a foot at Mason Ridge and personally decorated by Abraham Lincoln" Moss let it run through his farm even though the two mile stretch would cost him more through property taxes. When the paving was complete he had two small monuments erected in tribute to Lincoln, the highway, and himself.

Sometime in the '50s, vandals knocked off the head of Lincoln from one of the markers but somehow it surfaced in Charles City, Iowa in 1993. A cast was made, the head made to match the bust of Lincoln on the existing monument, and new busts, complete with the refurbished head, were made. Both the original head and a new bust are in the Welcome Center along with a pamphlet containing the story and more than a dozen others and places and people in Green County.

Bob and Kenny both talked at length about the 168 foot (xxx meter) bell tower Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Mahanay had donated to the city and stands in the square to one side of the Green County Court House. They said the 14 story tower commands a wide view of Jefferson and the surrounding countryside and in front was an original Lincoln Highway Marker. Directly in front of the Court House was a famous statue of Lincoln.

WE WENT AROUND THE CORNER TO THE SQUARE but got into a conversation with De and Rachel at Ace Hardware before we got to the bell tower, the marker, and the statue. Both De and Rachel agreed that, locally, there was a freeze on salaried workers but not on hourly, that farmers were doing OK, and people were generally downsizing. Lots of people were putting in gardens and canning and freezing so their business had improved in that area. Also, some people were doing solar, wind and geothermal. De ran off to do something else, and another staff member took her place along with a customer and Rachel for the photo.

Left to right, unidentified customer, unidentified staff, and Rachel, Ace Hardware, Jefferson, Iowa

We continued on around to the south side of the square and the marker was right where Bob and Kenny had said it was, in front of the bell tower, but it was hard to photo due to a confusing background. The statue of Lincoln was directly in front of the court house and fairly close the curb along which many cars were parked. When I stood in front of the statue Lincoln's head lined up with the lowered flag -- for Senator Ted Kennedy -- and his gaze seemed to be directly at me.

Lincoln statue in front of Green County Courthouse, Jefferson, Iowa

Researching the statue, I found it had been donated to Green County by Minnie and E.B. Wilson -- Mr. Wilson had been the counsel for the Lincoln Highway Association for western Iowa -- and was a replica of one in Cincinnati, Ohio, minus the figure of a kneeling woman, designed by William Granville Hastings.

The woman represented Liberty and is kneeling with a quill pen in her raised right hand and about the finish quotation from Lincoln's second Inaugural address which begins, "With malice toward none ..."

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Three weeks later, two days after surrender of the southern, Confederate forces, Lincoln delivered his last public address, in which he unfolded a generous reconstruction policy.

On April 14, 1865 the president held what was to be his last Cabinet meeting. That evening -- with his wife and a young couple who were his guests -- he attended a performance at Ford's Theater. There, as he sat in the presidential box, he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a Virginia actor embittered by the South's defeat. Booth was killed in a shootout some days later. His accomplices were captured and executed.

LATER IN THE AFTERNOON, the members of the River to River Tour arrived at the Welcome Center and where they were treated to freshly popped corn and soft drinks.

Members of River to River Tour socialize, Lincoln Highway Welcome Center, Jefferson, Iowa

This series of reports by David McLane documents life in small towns along four major highways in the United States during these hard times. It is NOT a survey but an attempt to come a fuller understanding of the land and the people which comprise significant parts of America but are typically un-represented by main-stream media. This is the third section and reports on traveling from San Francisco to New York City on the Lincoln Highway. The list of reports for the first section (US 95) can be found here. The list of reports for the second section (US 395) can be found here.

Related Articles

• Lincoln Highway:Part-1:Rolling Clouds and Fog at Start of Lincoln Highway
• Lincoln Highway:Part-2: Clickety-click, WHAM, BAM, BAM, BAM
• Lincoln Highway:Part-3: Each of the Summits has a Lincoln Highway Marker
• Lincoln Highway:Part-4: I Began to Lose Interest in Getting Back to Reality
• Lincoln Highway:Part-5: Evanston, Wyoming Still has the Small-town Feel
• Lincoln Highway:Part-6: Disaster Strikes: The Van Won't Start
• Lincoln Highway:Part-7: Van Runs, May-Chan Lives
• Lincoln Highway:Part-8: Walls of Corn to the Left of You
• Lincoln Highway:Part-9: "We were in trouble before the recession."