by Donn P. Werling
Executive Director Allen County Fort Wayne Historical Society
© 2002

Introduction:

The creation of the first coast to coast "rock" highway, later named the Lincoln Highway was like a Holy Grail that enraptured not only its founders but also the nation in a way few components of modern infrastructural

achievements ever have. In some ways it was analogous to this nation's landing a man on the moon. The moon was one "great leap" for mankind, but the Lincoln Highway was built mile by mile, community by community. Further the landing on the moon was funded strictly by taxes whereas the Lincoln Highway was at least at the onset born of automakers' desires for better roads to take people more miles and thus sell more cars. Thus the clarion call for completing a coast to coast highway did not come from Calvin Coolidge's White House but from the auto barons and kings whose cars bridled at the ruts in the roads and quagmires of the rainy seasons.

The movement to fully construct not only a paved road to embrace a continent but also a national model of what the many roads to follow should be like gathered up some of the brightest and most creative minds of the roaring twenties. Following is a brief sketch of some of the key personalities involved in the Lincoln Highway and/or its Ideal Mile:

Henry Joy of Packard Motor became one of the main driving forces in construction of the Lincoln Highway. The Packard was the vehicle of choice for long distance driving for those that could afford its price and fuel economy. Henry Ford was a friend and customer. Ford used Packards as well as Ts on his famous vagabond camping trips with Edison, Firestone and the naturalist John Burroughs. Henry Ford's philosophical opposition to having his company back the Lincoln Highway opened the door to local and national leadership of the coast to coast highway movement. Ford felt taxpayers should build the roads. Joy and his associates became sincere apostles, but it was in truth Henry Ford's Model T along with his famous camping expeditions with Presidents and celebrities that made the goal of better roads local or transcontinental not a dream but a necessity. In the book by Drake Hokanson in 1988 on the Lincoln Highway the author gives multiple page coverage of the impact of Ford and his T. Half the cars in the world were Ts.

The organizers polled road engineers and landscape architects. Many urged the incorporation of plantings and landscaping. O. C. Simonds and Elmer Jensen (both landscape architects) suggested that a landscape
architect be hired as part of the technical committee designing the Ideal Section, sometimes referred to as the Ideal Mile. Jens Jensen of Chicago was selected. In correspondence with the author, Robert Grese, Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Michigan and a Jens Jensen biographer said: "One of the beauties of this project was that it was a team approach. It might also be worth noting that some of the "parkway" contemporaries (or ones that followed soon after the "ideal section") ---- such as the Bronx River Parkway --- picked up this idea of being a well engineered road as well as (a) pleasure drive."

Edsel Ford, Henry and Clara Ford's only child, became president of Ford Motor Company in 1919 and had a great influence on the design of the Model A.  Other cars in both the Lincoln and Ford line bear his stamp and that stamp is best reflected in the fact that "his" Lincoln was once chosen and displayed in New York as a work of modern art. While he respected his father's wishes he recognized the value of the Lincoln Highway and what it stood for and thus quietly became a supporter.  His wishes were respected by Lincoln Highway officials. ^I 

His generous support of Jensen in designing the Ideal Section was an absolute match for Edsel's desire to make good things happen.

"Jens Jensen was to landscape art what Frank Lloyd Wright was to architecture," Lawrence Perkins, F.A.I.A. once told the author. He had known both well. Jensen molded the land into great works of landscape art like few before.  In many ways he was like the great English gardener, Sir Launcelot "Capability" Brown. Brown had swept aside the formal traditions of 18^th century gardening and sought rapprochement with nature in his designs. Jensen went beyond rapprochement and sought congruence. The new science of ecology born in both Germany and in Chicago during his lifetime had a profound influence upon him. He designed not only in the four spatial dimensions, but the fifth dimension of time.

The roadbuilding era of the 20^th century reshaped this continent and continues to reshape the world. The idea of creating an "Ideal Section or Mile" would have appealed immensely to Jensen. Chicago was after all the home of Daniel Burnham and his famous quote of "Make no small plans for they do not have the vision to stir men's souls." A transcontinental highway with the focal point in his backyard and being offered the
opportunity to design it was why only half in jest Jensen replies to a request from the LH officials for a bill that

"I do this for fun." ⁱⁱ

Jens Jensen had designed the estate of another key player in the Lincoln Highway movement. James Allison of Indianapolis had Jensen
design his estate in 1911. Thus who actually nominated Jensen for the design work is unclear. Edsel Ford's own correspondence file clearly indicates he paid for Jensen's work. If Allison who is listed as a founder of the Lincoln Highway did not nominate him he no doubt approved.

Sylvanus Bowser, the inventor of the modern pump, from Fort Wayne, Indiana is a player in the Ideal Section and in fact the Lincoln Highway coast to coast. Not only was he also listed as a founder he made the pumps that proclaimed the Lincoln Highway at gas pumps all along the route. As the photographs show he did special paint jobs for pumps of other national highways as well. While he is still listed as a founder, by the time the creation of the Ideal Mile comes into play Sylvanus' genius had turned inward upon himself. His invention and personal marketing of a backscratcher and sit down enema, the selling of postcards of himself next to the "Stone of Scone" of Westminster Abbey which he called Jacob's stone of Jacob's ladder fame….all this created a difficult and litigious strained relationship for himself, his family and company during the twilight of his career. He had invented the first modern pump in 1885.  Perhaps that is why when it came to selection of the firm to build the ideal filling station in the 1920s that the Lincoln Highway turns not the founder but to an offshoot, the Wayne Tank and Pump Company.

The Wayne Tank and Pump Company was started by a former Bowser executive and quickly became a success that stood alongside Bowser and later Tolkeim in making Fort Wayne the international capital of fuel pump handling machinery. Bowser had been a  patriarch to his workers and in many ways a beneficent one. Wayne pump took Bowser's innovations and invented new ones that brought recognition and market share growth. One such item was the self computing gas pump invented by another Fort Wayne genius named Robert Jauch who became the "Edison" of Wayne Tank and Pump's two modern laboratories. ⁱⁱⁱ  Up until that time you measured one gallon at a time or pumped your gas first up to a glass container that was like a giant measuring cup. Wayne Pump's invention revolutionized the world of pump manufacturing. First Bowser tried to imitate it but gave up and bought a manufacturing license from Wayne. The invention made the self service pump of today possible.

Bowser's catalogue from the 1920s shows a variety of well thought out and landscaped designs for the gas station owner to choose from when purchasing equipment. No such catalogues could be found for Wayne Pump. Both have been out of business for decades.  Perhaps Wayne Pump never matured to offer the comprehensive station layouts of the founder of the business. The one bit of controversy about the creation of the Ideal Mile this author found was that both Jensen and Edsel Ford objected to Wayne Pump's proposal as lacking in design quality. 

The construction of the Ideal Section in Indiana was the fulfillment of the second goal of the Lincoln Highway. Not only was it to connect both shores with a paved road for the first time, but in doing so it was to demonstrate the state of the art or cutting edge practices that all highways should emulate. The focal point along the 2,000 mile plus highway was to be one mile in northern Indiana. The best of all a highway could be was to be demonstrated including pumps and filling station design. Included in this were a number of conservation goals. Jensen was as much a conservationist as a designer and roadside management was to him a conservation activity still exemplified today in the Door County Parks in Wisconsin that he helped establish. The foot trail alongside the highway was unique and was said to separate the hiker in space and time even though it was but a few feet from the thoroughfare.

The section outside Dyer Indiana was selected in part because it presented no extraordinary problems. Its location near the center of the population of the United States and the thriving metropolis of Chicago was no doubt another reason. That one of the great artistic genius of landscape architecture, Jens Jensen, lived nearby was a bonus that was compounded because one of his most wealthy and influential
patrons happened to be Edsel B. Ford. Jensen had first done work for his father Henry Ford from 1914 - c.1920.

While a dutiful son, Edsel did not share a number of the views of his father. He first becomes a contributor to the Lincoln Highway and then a sponsor of Jens Jensen, the landscape architect who had overall design responsibilities for the "Ideal Mile". Jensen landscaped four homes for Edsel and Eleanor including the magnificently understated estate on Lake St. Clair and "Skylands" in Maine where today Martha Stewart enjoys the complete sense of harmony with nature of which Jen\sen was a master. Edsel like Jensen had an artist soul.  They resonated. When a disagreement over the design of the filling station that was to be a part of the Ideal Mile arose Edsel took Jens Jensen's side. It was the one and only design disagreement found as the patron clearly set down that it was the artist who was in charge of the ideal. ^iv  This was a recurring theme in Edsel's life and one that brought him great admiration and respect and brought out the best in those who worked for him.

The ideal section was to showcase the best of all aspects of

road construction but it also was designed to motivate communities along the route to work to solve one of the real problems of continental driving. Holiday Inns had not been invented yet. As sections of the highway were brought into use cars and occupants had neither motels or formal campgrounds to patronize, as they too had not been established widely. They were left to park along the side of the road with all the attendant litter and sanitary problems. Thus in addition to demonstrations of modern street lighting capabilities and concrete paving a demonstration campground was to be a feature of the demonstration. The filling station was to have served a dual use. It would dispense gasoline to cars, but its facilities would be used day and night by the campers recuperating in the ideal campsite.

The Ideal Section was made ideal not only by the oak grove and natural features, but by $5,000  worth of landscape plants that transformed the area for a time into an idealization of nature as Jensen intended with all of his work. Unfortunately the idea of roadside plantings was also brand new to the American consciousness. The ideally landscaped highway section soon suffered from something that has been around a long time - thievery. $5,000 would have bought a lot of plants in the 1920s and locals probably thought it was just a more convenient continuation of a long standing practice of stealing trees and flowers from native woodlands.

Among Jens Jensen's other achievements are helping to found the Chicago area Forest Preserve System, the expansion of the State of Illinois Park System, the County Park System of Door County Wisconsin and his school The Clearing also in Ellison Bay. He also left in his wake many true believers who no doubt visited the Ideal Mile and came to recognize that erosion and ugliness are not a necessity. Even though as they walked off with the plants along the Ideal Mile the thieves must have wondered what was going in here that plants would be placed so conveniently for their cars. Decades later I drove the Lincoln Highway on many occasions between Chicago and Fort Wayne. During that time Lady Bird Johnson spent millions to help beautify our public roads. Jensen's ideas about not only beautifying but framing the countryside and when it was ugly screening it makes for much more pleasant and stimulating driving. Thus while the landscaping of the Ideal Section was in some ways a failure they have been a evolutionary pulse along a rising tide that befits the best of what enamored Henry Joy and the founders of this historic highway.  It was not a highway to heaven, but as Henry David Thoreau once said it allowed people to discover that "Heaven is under our feet as well as over our head."

Proposal for a new "Ideal Heritage Mile"

Just as the original Lincoln Highway proponents used example to influence the future so too is it proposed to create an "Ideal Heritage Mile" that would tell the story of the original concept and renew it for future generations by:

1. Selection of a mile that is close to a population center and a concentration of antique car enthusiasts

2. Showcase how the roadside can be planted and managed for aesthetic purposes

3. Demonstrate preservation techniques including a model sign ordinance and the restoration of historic structures.

4. Be of such quality and part of a landscape that would attract period film makers

5. Demonstrate a model campsite/ filling station if economically feasible/connected to other cultural attractions.

Which mile should be chosen is of course the task that would follow if this course is pursued. Ideally it would be done as part of the designation and development process of all or portions of all the Lincoln Highway in Indiana as an official heritage or scenic byway. 

The Lincoln Highway crosses Fort Wayne, Indiana from the southeast to the northwest.  Another historic Indian trail, highway and waterway, US 24 and the longest manmade waterway in the Western hemisphere-the Wabash & Erie canal crosses from northeast to southwest. These historic highways form a large X that marks the spot of Fort Wayne. Just to the north is one of the largest concentration of automobile enthusiasts/auto museum displays in the world: The Auburn Cord Duesenberg museum. Thus a strong case could be made for locating the new ideal heritage mile near or in Fort Wayne; perhaps along what is today route 33, the first route of the Lincoln Highway where both the best of the old and new could be recaptured if like the Lincoln Highway of old private, state and federal sources work together to make a good thing

ⁱ Edsel B. Ford letter to Mr. A.F. Bement, Vice President and Secretary of the\ Lincoln Highway Association, March 26, 1924 as found in the Personal Correspondence file of the Edsel B. Ford collection of the Henry Ford Museum  and Greenfield Village Research Center.

ⁱⁱ Austin F. Bement, letter to Edsel B. Ford, President of Ford Motor Company,  March 14, 1924 as found in the Personal Correspondence file of the Edsel B. Ford collection of the Henry Ford Museum  and Greenfield Village Research Center

ⁱⁱⁱ Telephone interview conducted by the author with Ronald Vaughn, former CEO and owner of Vaughn Pump Company, Fort Wayne, IN, the successor to Wayne Tank and Pump Company, December 4, 2002.

^iv Memo from Lockwood Greene and Company Engineers to Mr. Jensen, Mr. Bement (V.P. of the Lincoln Highway Assoc.) and Mr. Cook, p.2, July 14, 1924 as found in the Personal Correspondence file of the Edsel B. Ford collection of the Henry Ford Museum  and Greenfield Village Research Center

Bibliography:

Grese, Robert Jens Jensen, Maker of Natural Parks and Gardens, The John Hopkins University Press,
Baltimore and London, 1992

Hokanson, Drake  The Lincoln Highway: Main Street Across America, University of Iowa Press, 1988

Eaton, Leonard, Landscape Artist in America, the life and work of Jens Jensen, The University of Chicago Press,  Chicago, IL, 1964

Werling, Donn Henry Ford a Hearthside Perspective, The Society of Automotive Engineers International, Warrendale, PA,  2000

Werling, Donn "Jens Jensen and Henry Ford", Connections, The University of Michigan-Dearborn, 1993