The Lincoln Highway reflected an American cultural awakening in the 1900s, as the end of the Victorian era brought progress, independence, and the new freedom of traveling across the country by automobile on the first transcontinental highway. Along the highway, art and architecture expressed the character of the period and its communities. In Illinois, Lorado Taft created the 50-foot statue The Eternal Indian, better known as Blackhawk Statue, beginning the project in 1908 as a tribute to Native Americans and dedicating it in 1911; it stands on Eagle's Nest Bluff in Lowden State Park, 125 feet above the Rock River and is said to be one of the world's largest monolithic concrete statues. The Ogle County Board also commissioned Lorado Taft and architects Pond and Pond to create The Soldiers' Monument in honor of Ogle County veterans, a memorial dedicated in 1916 after a year's work that includes three sculptures and an architecturally designed exedra of marble and bronze on the courthouse grounds. Bridges along the highway also incorporated artwork and design, as seen in the New York Street Memorial Bridge in Aurora, Illinois, which spans the Fox River and was dedicated as a memorial to World War I veterans; sculptor Emory Seidel designed it with sculpted figures integrated into the concrete structure, with sculptures in the pylons and in niches at the bridge's center using concrete, bronze, and limestone. In Chicago Heights, at the transcontinental intersection of the Lincoln Highway and the Dixie Highway known as the Crossroads of the Nation, the Arche Fountain was built in 1916 by the Conservation Committee of the Arche Club of Chicago as a memorial honoring the intersection and as a resting place for cross-country travelers.

Photo: Darren Jefferson Clay

Oregon, Illinois · USA