Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway Part 1

Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway.

by Effie Price Gladding.

INTRODUCTION

A FOREWORD THAT IS A RETROSPECT

From the Pacific to the Atlantic by the Lincoln Highway, with California and the Virginias and Maryland thrown in for good measure! What a tour it has been! As we think back over its miles we recall the n.o.ble pines and the towering Sequoias of the high Sierras of California; the flashing water-falls of the Yosemite, so green as to be called Vernal, so white as to be called Bridal Veil; the orchards of the prune, the cherry, the walnut, the olive, the almond, the fig, the orange, and the lemon, tilled like a garden, watered by the h.o.a.rded and guarded streams from the everlasting hills; and the rich valleys of grain, running up to the hillsides and dotted by live oak trees. We recall miles of vineyard under perfect cultivation. We see again the blue of the Pacific and the green of the forest cedars and cypresses. High Lake Tahoe spreads before us, with its southern fringe of emerald meadows and forest pines, and its encircling guardians, lofty and snow-capped. The high, grey-green deserts of Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming stretch before us once more, and we can smell the clean, pungent sage brush. We are not lonely, for life is all about us. The California quail and blue-jay, the eagle, the ground squirrel, the gopher, the coyote, the antelope, the rattlesnake, the big ring snake, the wild horse of the plains, the jack rabbit, the meadow lark, the killdeer, the red-winged blackbird, the sparrow hawk, the thrush, the redheaded wood-p.e.c.k.e.r, the grey dove, all have been our friends and companions as we have gone along. We have seen them in their native plains and forests and from the safe vantage point of the front seat of our motor car.

The lofty peaks of the Rockies have towered before us in a long, unbroken chain as we have looked at them from the alfalfa fields of Colorado.

We have seen the bread and the cornbread of a nation growing on the rolling prairies of Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois. We have crossed the green, pastoral stretches of Indiana and Ohio and Pennsylvania. The red roads of Virginia, winding among her laden orchards of apples and peaches and pears and her lush forests of oak and pine; the yellow roads of Maryland, pa.s.sing through her fertile fields and winding in and out among the thousand water ways of her coast line, all come before us.

These are precious possessions of experience and memory, the choice, intimate knowledge to which the motorist alone can attain.

The Friends of the Open Road are ours; the homesteader in his white canopied prairie schooner, the cattleman on his pony, the pa.s.sing fellow motorist, the ranchman at his farmhouse door, the country inn-keeper hospitably speeding us on our way.

We have a new conception of our great country; her vastness, her varied scenery, her prosperity, her happiness, her boundless resources, her immense possibilities, her kindness and hopefulness. We are bound to her by a thousand new ties of acquaintance, of a.s.sociation, and of pride.

The Lincoln Highway is already what it is intended to be, a golden road of pleasure and usefulness, fitly dedicated, and destined to inspire a great patriotism and to honour a great patriot.

OCTOBER, 1914.

ACROSS THE CONTINENT BY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY

CHAPTER I

With what a strange thrill I look out from my stateroom window, early one April morning, and catch a glimpse of the flashing light on one of the green promontories of the Golden Gate! I dress hurriedly and run out to find that a light is flaming on the other promontory, and that we are entering the great Bay of San Francisco. It has taken a long preparation to give me the feeling of pride and joy and wonder with which I come through the Golden Gate to be in my own country once more. A year of touring in Europe, nearly a year of travel in the Orient, six months in Australia and New Zealand, and after that three months in Honolulu; all this has given me the background for the unique sensation with which I see the two lights on the long green promontories of the Golden Gate stretching out into the Pacific. Our ship moves steadily on, past Alcatraz Island with its long building on its rocky height, making it look like a big Atlantic liner built high amidships. There are the green heights of the Presidio and the suburbs of the city of San Francisco. On the left in the distance is Yerba Buena Island. Far ahead of us, across the width of the Bay, are the distant outlines of Oakland and Berkeley.

Later I am to stand on the hilly campus of the University of California and look straight across the Bay through the Golden Gate which we have just entered. The tall buildings of San Francis...o...b..gin to arise and we are landed in the streets of the new city. What a marvel it is! In the ten days that we were there I must say that still the wonder grew that a city could have risen in nine short years from shock, and flood, and fire, to be the solid, imposing structure of stone and brick, with wide bright streets and impressive plazas, that San Francisco now is. In the placing of its statues at dramatic points on the streets and cross streets, it reminds one of a French city. The new city has fine open s.p.a.ces, with streets stretching in all directions from these plazas.

There are many striking groups of statuary; among them one whose inscriptions reads:

DEDICATED TO MECHANICS BY JAMES MERVYN DONAHUE IN MEMORY OF HIS FATHER, PETER DONAHUE

The most striking figure in this group, one of five workmen cutting a hole through a sheet of steel, is the figure of the old man who superintends the driving of the bolt through the sheet, while four stalwart young men throw their weight upon the lever. Here is not only stalwart youth and brawn, but also the judgment and steadiness of mature age. The older man has a good head, and adds a moral balance to the whole group. It is a fine memorial, not only to the man whose memory it honours, but also to a host of mechanics and working men who do their plain duty every day.

The most attractive thing about the San Francisco residences is the fine view of the Bay that many of them have. It is the business portion of the city that makes the striking impression upon the stranger. The new Masonic Building, with its ma.s.sive cornice, reminding one of the Town Hall in the old fighting town of Perugia, Italy; the towering b.u.t.tresses of the Hotel St. Francis; the n.o.ble ma.s.ses of the business blocks; the green rectangle of the civic center where the city's functions are held in the open air;--all are impressive. In all of the California cities, one finds no better dressed people and no more cosmopolitan people in appearance than are to be seen on the San Francisco streets. It is more nearly a great city in its spirit and atmosphere than any other metropolis of the State.

The drive through the Golden Gate Park is interesting because of the blooming shrubs, and the lovely foliage. I have never before seen my favorite golden broom blooming in any part of the United States. Here it grows luxuriantly. The Presidio, the site of the military post, is a very beautiful park, and is well worth seeing.

A memorable excursion is one across the Bay to Berkeley, the seat of the State University. In the past fifteen or twenty years the University has grown from a somewhat motley collection of old brick buildings into a n.o.ble a.s.semblage of harmonious stone buildings with long lines of much architectural impressiveness. No one can see the University of California without feeling that here is a great inst.i.tution against the background of a great State. Two buildings which I particularly like are the School of Mines, built by Mrs. Phoebe Hearst as a memorial to her husband, and the beautiful library. While the two buildings are very different in type, each is n.o.ble and appropriate for its particular uses. There are still a few of the original buildings standing, old-fashioned and lonely. Doubtless they will be removed in time and more fitting structures will take their place. The situation of the campus is superb. It lies on a group of green foothills, the buildings rising from various knolls. You literally go up to the halls of learning. The whole campus and the little university city at its feet are dominated by an enormous white C outlined on the green hills far above. It is a stiff climb to that C, but it is a favorite walk for ambitious students. They tell me that occasionally students come up from Leland Stanford University and in teasing rivalry paint over the C at the dead hour of night. The University is rich in beautiful situations on the campus for out-of-door functions. Nothing could be lovelier than Strawberry Canyon, a green valley with immemorial live oaks scattered here and there; and with clumps of shrubbery behind whose greenness musicians can conceal themselves. We saw the annual masque given by four hundred University women in honour of Mrs. Phoebe Hearst. I carry in memory a lovely vision of dancing wood nymphs, of living flowers, of soft twilight colors, streaming across the greensward; and of a particular wood nymph, the very spirit of the Spring, who played about in irresponsible happiness, all in soft wood browns and pinks and greens. The Greek Theatre is a n.o.ble monument to Mr. Randolph Hearst, its donor. A great audience there is a fine sight; so symmetrical is the amphitheatre that it is hard to realize how many thousands of people are sitting in the circle of its stone tiers. Behind the topmost tier runs a wall covered with blooming roses, while back of this wall hang the drooping ta.s.sels of tall eucalyptus trees. Nothing could be more fitting as a theatre for music and for all the n.o.blest and most dignified functions of a great inst.i.tution.

We did not start on our long journey, which was to mount up to 8,600 miles in distance, until the 21st of April. Before that we had a delightful northern trip of one hundred and twenty miles in a friend's motor car; crossing the ferry and driving through Petaluma, Sonoma Valley, and Santa Rosa, on to Ukiah. Coming through Petaluma our host told us that we were in "Henville." I had supposed that chickens would do well anywhere in sunny California, but not so. There are districts where the fog gets into the throats of the fowls and kills them. Sonoma County is particularly adapted for chicken raising and there are hundreds of successful chicken growers in this region.

As we came through Santa Rosa, we saw the modest home and the office and gardens of Luther Burbank.

Beyond Santa Rosa we entered what our host called the Switzerland of California. The roads are only ordinary country roads and very hilly at that, but the rolling green fields and glimpses of distant hills, with heavy forests here and there, are very beautiful. I saw for the first time in all its spring glory the glowing California poppy. Great ma.s.ses of bright orange yellow were painted against the lush green of the thick hillside gra.s.s; ma.s.ses that fairly radiated light. Alongside these patches of flaming yellow were other patches of the deep blue lupine.

Some great painter should immortalize the spring fields of California.

The wonderful greenness of the gra.s.s, the glowing ma.s.ses of yellow, and the deep gentian blue of the lupine would rank with the coloring of McWhirter's "Tyrol in Springtime." California in the spring is an ideal State in which to motor. We were sorry that we could not accept our host's invitation to motor still farther north into Lake County, a county of rough roads but fine scenery.

Northern California has not yet been developed or exploited for tourists as has the southern part of the State, but there is beautiful scenery in all the counties north of San Francisco. As we drove through Sonoma (Half Moon) Valley, we saw the green slopes of Jack London's ranch, not many miles away. Jack London's recent book, "The Valley of the Half Moon," describes the scenery of this region.

Back of Vallejo, reached by ferry from San Francisco, lies the lovely Napa Valley, filled with fruit ranches. Its southern end is narrow, but as one drives farther north it widens out into a broad green expanse of orderly fruit farms and pleasant homes, dominated by green hills on either side. Sonoma Valley and Napa Valley were the first of many enchanting valleys which we saw in California. As I look back on our long drive, it seems to me now that in California you are always either climbing a mountain slope or descending into a green valley flanked by ranges of hills. Calistoga, at the northern end of Napa Valley, has interesting literary a.s.sociations. It was on the slope of Calistoga Mountain that Robert Louis Stevenson spent his honeymoon and had the experience of which we read to-day in "The Silverado Squatters."

San Francisco is a pleasure-loving town. When its people are not eating in public places to the sound of music, they are likely to be amusing themselves in public places. The moving picture, the theatre, the vaudeville, all flourish in this big, gay, rushing city. The merchants of San Francisco have shown great courage and daring in the erection of their big buildings almost immediately on the stones and ashes of the old ones. They have done all this on borrowed money and loaded themselves with heavy mortgages, trusting to the future and to fat years to pay off their indebtedness. They have done an heroic work in a solid, impressive way, and deserve all the business that can possibly come to them.

In San Francisco I saw for the first time that great California inst.i.tution, the cafeteria. They p.r.o.nounce this word in California with the accent on the "i." To a traveler it seems as if all San Francisco must take its meals in these well equipped and perfectly ordered restaurants. You enter at one side of the room, taking up napkin, tray, knife, fork, and spoons from carefully arranged piles as you pa.s.s along a narrow aisle outlined by a railing. Next comes a counter steaming with trays of hot food, and a second counter follows with rows of salads and fruits on ice. After one's choice is made, the tray is inspected and the pay-check estimated and placed on the tray by a cashier. You are then free to choose your table in the big room and to turn over your tray to one of the few waiters in attendance. You leave on the opposite side of the room, pa.s.sing a second cashier and paying the amount of your check.

It is a great game, this of choosing one's food by looking it over as it stands piping hot or ice cold, in its appointed place. The attendants are evidently accustomed to the weakness of human nature, bewildered by so overwhelming an array of viands. They keep calling out the merits of various dishes as the slow procession pa.s.ses. "Have some broiled ham?

It's very nice this morning." "Try the bacon. It's specially good to-day."

California people are much given to light housekeeping and to taking their meals in cafeterias and other restaurants. Doubtless this fashion may have been inaugurated by the fact that an ever increasing tourist population, living in hotels and lodgings, must be taken care of. But many of the Californians themselves are accustomed to reduce the cares of housekeeping to the minimum, and to take almost all their meals away from their own homes. The servant question is a serious one in California; and this type of co-operative housekeeping seems to commend itself to hosts of people. We enjoyed it as pilgrims and travelers, but one would scarcely wish to have so large a part of the family life habitually lived in public places.

CHAPTER II

In the heart of San Francisco stands a tall, slender iron pillar, with a bell hanging from its down-turned top, like a lily drooping on its stalk. This bell is a northern guide post of the famous El Camino Real, the old highway of the Spanish monks and monasteries on which still stand the ruins of the ancient Mission churches and cloisters. We purpose to drive south the entire length of the six hundred miles of El Camino Real; and then turning northward to cross the mountain backbone of the State of California, and to come up through the vast and fertile stretches of its western valleys, meeting the Lincoln Highway at the town of Stockton.

It is the morning of the 21st of April when we swing around the graceful bell, run along Market Street to the Masonic Temple, turn left into Mission Road, and from Mission Road come again into El Camino Real. We first pa.s.s through the usual fringe of cheap houses, road saloons, and small groceries that surrounds a great city. Then comes a group of the city's cemeteries, "Cypress Grove," "Home of Peace," and others. We have a b.u.mpy road in leaving the city, followed by a fine stretch of smooth, beautiful cement highway. On through rolling green country we drive, and into the suburb of Burlingame with its vine covered and rose embowered bungalows, and its houses of brown shingle and of stucco. The finer places sit far back from the road in aristocratic privacy, with big, gra.s.sy parks shaded by n.o.ble trees in front, and with the green foothills as a background.

At San Mateo, a town with the usual shaven and parked immaculateness of highcla.s.s suburbs, we have luncheon in a simple little pastry shop. The woman who gaily serves us with excellent ham sandwiches, cake, and coffee, tells us that she is from Alsace-Lorraine. She and her husband have found their way to California. From San Mateo we drive to Palo Alto, where we spend some time in visiting Leland Stanford University.

The University buildings of yellow sandstone with their warm red tiled roofs look extremely well in the southern sun. Here are no hills and inequalities. All the buildings stand on perfectly level ground, the situation well suited to the long colonnades and the level lines of the buildings themselves. It is worth the traveler's while to walk through the long cloisters and to visit the rich and beautiful church, whose restoration from the ravages of the earthquake is about completed. With its tiling and mosaic work, its striking mottoes upon the walls, and its fine windows, it is very like an Italian church.

The town of Palo Alto is a pretty little settlement, depending upon the University for its life.

From Palo Alto we drive on into the Santa Clara Valley. We are too late to see the fruit trees in bloom, a unique sight; but the valley stretches before us in all its exquisite greenness and freshness after the spring rains. Miles of fruit trees, as carefully pruned and weeded and as orderly in every detail as a garden, are on every side of us.

Prune trees, cherry trees, and apricot trees; there are thousands of them, in a most beautiful state of cultivation and fruitfulness. No Easterner who has seen only the somewhat untidy and carelessly cultivated orchards of the East can imagine the exquisite order and detailed cultivation of the California fruit orchards. We saw miles of such orchards always in the same perfect condition. Not a leaf, not a branch, not a weed is left in these orchards. They are plowed and harrowed, sprayed and pruned, down to the last corner of every orchard, and the last branch of every tree.

Through the clean aisles, between the green rows, run the channels for the precious water that has traveled from the mountains to the plains to turn tens of thousands of acres into a fair and fruitful garden.

The Santa Clara Valley is one of the loveliest valleys of all California, and indeed of all the world. Set amid its orchards are tasteful houses and bungalows, commodious and architecturally pleasing; very different from the box-like farmhouses of the Middle West and the East. On either side rise high green hills. It is a picture of beauty wherever one looks.

At Santa Clara, on our way to San Jose, we stop to see the Santa Clara Mission, just at the edge of the town. All that remains of the first Mission is enclosed within a wall, the new church and the flourishing new school standing next to the enclosure.

In the middle of the valley is the city of San Jose, an active, bustling town, full of life and business. We spent a pleasant day at the Hotel Vendome, an old-fashioned and delightful hostel, surrounded by a park of fine trees and flowering shrubs. The Vendome is a good place in which to rest and bask in the sunshine.

When we next motor through the Santa Clara Valley, we shall visit the New Almaden quicksilver mine, twelve miles from San Jose, and commanding from its slopes a wondrous view of the valley and the Garden City, as San Jose is called. And there is the interesting trip from San Jose to Mt. Hamilton and the Lick Observatory. One can motor by a good road to the summit of the mountain, 4,209 feet above sea level, and spend the night at the hotel below on the mountain slope.

Leaving San Jose, we were more and more charmed with the valley as we drove along through orderly orchards and past tasteful bungalows. This was the California of laden orchards, of roses and climbing geraniums, of green hills rising beyond the valleys, of which we had read. As we approached the foot hills of the Santa Cruz Mountains we looked back and saw the green valley with its ranks of trees unrolled below us.