All Aboard for the Lincoln Highway Bus Tour May 19

On May 19, a group of history enthusiasts will take a bus tour of the historic Lincoln Highway, stopping at significant sites in three local towns and learning all about how the highway was built, and how it was used.

And if you want to be one of them, you’ll need to hurry up. According to Plainfield's Tina Beaird of History Without Boundaries, the group organizing the trip, there are only about a dozen seats left.

History Without Boundaries is an association of non-profit historic organizations from Kane, Kendall and Will counties. This is the second history-themed bus trip the group has organized – last year, they launched a Civil War-themed tour, one which took them to sites in Montgomery, Aurora, Oswego and Plainfield. Beaird said there were about 40 people who took the trip, and she said it was a great success.

This year’s bus ride will not make any stops in Montgomery, according to Debbie Buchanan, executive assistant to the village administrator and Montgomery’s representative in History Without Boundaries. That’s because the Lincoln Highway, the first coast-to-coast highway in the United States, doesn’t run through Montgomery, she said - it just brushes the edge of the village at Hill Avenue and Route 30.

But it does run through Oswego, Plainfield and Aurora. The trip will begin in Oswego, at the Wheatland Salem Church, at 8:30 a.m. The bus will travel to Aurora, where guides will talk history at the Lincoln Highway Shelter in Phillips Park, and the nationally-designated “Auto Row,” where several service stations and showrooms were erected along the highway.

This year’s trip also includes a six-block walking tour of historic Lincoln Highway businesses in downtown Plainfield, including a 1928 gas station listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Classic cars will be on display at several of the sites as well, Beaird said. The trip will end where it began in Oswego at 3:30 p.m.

The Lincoln Highway was opened in 1913, and spanned from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, a total of 3,389 miles. It was designated a national scenic byway in 2000, and the Lincoln Highway Association, originally established in 1913 but re-formed in 1992, now works to preserve and promote the road.

Beaird said eight History Without Boundaries members get together to decide each year’s bus trip theme, and they are all members of local historical organizations. She said she hopes people leave the bus trip excited to get involved with preserving local history.

“I hope they get involved with their local historical societies,” she said. “We all have openings, and we’re all looking for people interested in these topics.”

Tickets for the May 19 Lincoln Highway bus tour are $40, with lunch included. The money collected goes to pay for the trip itself, Beaird said. Call Beaird at 630-554-3883, or email historywithoutboundaries@gmail.com to reserve a spot. And for more information, check out the group’s Facebook page.