Celebrating 25+ years of the Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor in a 'Roaring 20s' style
The Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor (LHHC) is hosting a Roaring 20s Anniversary Celebration at Latrobe Country Club on Saturday, August 20 from 5-8 p.m.
Guests are invited to celebrate the history and legacy of the LHHC, which in turn celebrates and preserves the history and legacy of the Lincoln Highway, with a night of cocktails, delicious food, live music by Deja Vu, and more at the historic Latrobe Country Club.
There will be a silent and live auction, 50/50, cash bar, and more. Attendees are encouraged to wear semi-formal dress or their best 1920s inspired garb. The cost is $90 per person, and includes a buffet dinner.
The Lincoln Highway was America’s first coast-to-coast highway, started in 1913 by a group of mostly automobile business owners and entrepreneurs at a time when road maintenance was left to local governments. The Lincoln Highway was a group effort to get the public to understand the importance of good roads and encourage leisure travel across the country on the automobile—a relatively new but increasingly affordable mode of transport at the time.
“It’s quite fitting to have this event at Latrobe Country Club because it is so tied to the heyday of the Lincoln Highway” said executive director Lauren Koker. “Latrobe Country Club, founded in 1920, is on the historic Lincoln Highway. Many of the original travelers of the highway through this part of Pennsylvania would have passed right by there in their Model Ts and other vehicles.”
The Roaring 20s Celebration was originally slated to take place during May 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic put the anniversary plans on hold for over two years.
“Twenty-five years is such a landmark that we didn’t want to skimp on the celebration,” said Koker. “As a result, we made the theme of the party ‘Roaring 20s’ instead of a 25th anniversary celebration, since we’re now 27 years from our founding date.”
The celebration is a belated 25th anniversary celebration for the LHHC, 501(c)(3) organization, which was designated in 1995 as a Pennsylvania Heritage Area by then Governor Tom Ridge. The LHHC’s mission is to identify, conserve, promote, and interpret the cultural, historical, natural, recreational, and economic resources along the 200-mile Lincoln Highway in Westmoreland, Somerset, Bedford, Fulton, Franklin and Adams counties in Pennsylvania.
Since its inception, the LHHC has, among many projects:
· Created and printed a Lincoln Highway Driving Guide
· Awarded nearly 2 million dollars in mini-grants (with funding originating from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources) to nonprofit organizations and municipalities along our Corridor.
· Recorded and transcribed 31 oral histories from Corridor residents.
· Created a 200-mile ‘Roadside Museum” exhibit along the corridor, which included:
o 12 murals
o 65 interpretive exhibits
o 4 Picture Yourself exhibits (photo op exhibits)
o Lincoln Highway Pump Parade (featuring 22 professionally painted fiberglass gas pumps)
· Placed nearly 200 Lincoln Highway Road Signs along the corridor from Irwin in Westmoreland County to Abbottstown in Adams County, indicating the route of the original historic Lincoln Highway
· Saved 1927 Coffee Pot in Bedford from demolition; LHHC quickly raised funds to relocate it, restore it, and put on National Register
· Worked with five Career and Technology schools in five school districts along Corridor to create welded “Roadside Giants of the Lincoln Highway” sculptures.
· Commissioned 12 murals at various spots along the 200-mile corridor in south-west to south-central Pennsylvania.
· Secured $500,000 in funds to restore the historic 1938 Serro’s Diner (originally located in Irwin). It is now the centerpiece of the Lincoln Highway Experience Museum in Latrobe, PA. In 2014, the Diner was awarded a Preservation PA Award.
· Purchased the historic Johnston House in 2010/2011 for a permanent Lincoln Highway Experience Museum. Added an addition in 2018 which included Serro’s diner, a 1920s tourist cabin, and a 1937 Packard car.
· In 2020, to celebrate the LHHC’s 25th Anniversary, board members installed red, white and blue Abraham Lincoln cutouts onto our existing Lincoln Highway road signs along the 6-county Corridor.
The Roaring 20s Anniversary Celebration is sponsored by Joe & Allana Kondisko, 1stSummit Bank, OPCO, Somerset Trust Company, J.J. Hauser & Sons, Phyllis Bertok & Rich Lopretto, The Markosky Engineering Group, Inc., Ellen & Bob Piper, and Christine & Rege Tomsey. Additional support is provided by Art & Cheryl McMullen, the American Society of Highway Engineers (Harrisburg Chapter), the American Society of Highway Engineers (Southwest PA Chapter), the American Society of Highway Engineers (Altoona Chapter), and Go Laurel Highlands.
For more information, contact Lauren Koker, Executive Director of the Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor at lauren@LHHC.org or 724-879-4241.