Christopher Clott – Unearthing Highway 41: An American Journey

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Welcome to our 73rd monthly Zoom presentation. Another milestone on the journey we embarked on in those long-ago days of the pandemic.

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We can all be very proud of the amazing library of recordings that we are building

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It’s truly a testament to the diversity of the roadside.

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I am Brian Gallagher, the president of the Society for Commercial Archaeology, and proud to be your host for tonight’s presentation.

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We’re happy you took the time to watch an SCA presentation, and I hope you will enjoy the show.

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And for those watching the recording of this episode of the SCA’s monthly presentations, who is not a member of the SCA

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We earnestly ask you to consider joining. Funding for the various activities of the SCA comes almost exclusively from our membership

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Just visit our website at www.sca-roadside.org and follow the links.

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Now I have the pleasure of introducing this month’s presenter.

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Christopher Klot is going to tell us tonight about unearthing Highway 41, an American Journey.

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Let’s go with him on a virtual ride through eight states, from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to the southern tip of Florida.

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We will visit huge cities and quiet hamlets, museums, and roadside attractions. Monuments and exciting new sites along what Chris says is America’s most important historical and colorful north-south highway.

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Over its 2,000 mile length, our major metropolitan areas, regional cities, small towns, farmland, and forests

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Author Chris Klott will take us on a lively journey to see all that is along the road and nearby as it passes through a varied eight-state section of the U.S. of A

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The past and present are intermingled here within controversial, historical and current issues that remain part of the American journey.

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Christopher Klot is a former professor of international business and maritime logistics with a keen interest in how people live and work. After a long career in business and academia, this is his first book

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When he’s not on the road in search of fascinating places to see, he lives with his wife in the Chicago suburb of Western Springs.

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Sure.

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Okay, we’re recording, Chris.

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Fantastic. Well, thank you all for, um, attending this Zoom event. I most appreciate it. I first, uh, encountered the SCA in doing research about this highway. I’ll talk about that a little later.

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So, the book, entitled Unearthing Highway 41, An American Journey, um…

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There is me, um, pictures.

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Uh, along the journey, and as Brian said, I live in the Chicago suburb of Western Springs.

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So, Highway 41 is a great American road.

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And it is 100 years old.

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And, of course, we hear much about, um,

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Route 66, it’s also 100 years old, as are all the numbered road systems in the United States.

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Highway 41 is a road that is often been neglected, I think, in terms of its importance.

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And in terms of its overall historic nature.

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And it extends through 8 states, from the very top, you can see Copper Harbor, Michigan.

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All the way down to Miami, Florida.

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And… and as mentioned by Brian, it goes through all kinds of different places along the way. By the way, you will see a number of drawings. This was all by an artist by the name of Molly Miklos. Wonderful, wonderful artist.

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who contributed a great deal to this book.

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So, the beginning of the road…

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Or, you could probably say the ending of the road, depending on if you drove from Florida on north, um, but this is from the north to the south, um, is

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Near, um, a little, little tiny tourist town called Copper Harbor,

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in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. If you walked past this sign and probably, uh,

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about a mile and a half walk, you run into Lake Superior.

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And the official end of the road,

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At this time, is the Brickell neighborhood,

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Which is in Miami, Florida. There used to be an N sign there, um, in the early 2000s.

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But there’s all kinds of new construction there.

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In Chicago, it is very well known as Dusable Lakeshore Drive. That is very, very important part of the road.

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But equally important,

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In Florida, it’s… there is the 10 Miami Trail that runs along the Gulf, and then across

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to the, um, to Miami.

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And through this book, we’ll be rolling down Highway 41 in the words of the

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Ramblin’ Man, the great Allman Brothers band song.

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This is through Georgia, and you can see it’s a pretty quiet stretch along this road.

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Parts of it are really, really congested, parts of it are just like this.

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So the book is in four parts.

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Part 1 is some introductory, um,

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what the road was prior to it actually being a road, uh, in some instances, and the automobile.

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Uh, the journey north, the journey south, and a summation, um, of just what does this all mean.

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So we start with the path.

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there was always a path, and that path was created, um, over centuries.

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And the first…

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on that path were the buffalo. And the buffalo created traces. People always associate the buffalo with the western United States, and that’s not entirely true. There were millions of buffalo throughout the United States, or North America,

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And they created these traces. You can still see some of these traces. There’s the Vincennes trace,

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In Indiana, there’s the Natchez Trace.

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So, the buffalo was incredibly important, and also, unfortunately,

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Almost hunted to extinction in the early part of the last century.

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There were… there were some… only several hundred left.

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Um, in the early 1900s, when conservation efforts took place,

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There are now about 50,000 buffalo in the country. This is along Highway 41 in Indiana. This is a conservation area where buffalo have been reintroduced.

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And following the buffalo, again, thousands of years ago, were indigenous tribes.

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And Indigenous tribes left no written records. They did leave historical objects. There’s lots of archaeology that is ongoing.

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This is the Etowah Mounds, the Mississippian period, the mound builders.

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And indigenous tribes followed the buffalo. That was… that was their lifeblood.

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And…

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Then the Europeans arrived, and the Europeans arrived in real force after the American Revolution.

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And settlers poured into the interior of the country.

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And here is a young Abe Lincoln walking across the Lincoln Memorial Bridge. This is in… from Vincennes, Indiana, to Lawrence, Illinois.

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right along Highway 41.

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And also along the road, the Civil War.

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was bought. Uh, there are many major battles, particularly in Tennessee and in Georgia, that were fought along

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the root of this highway.

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the Underground Railroad.

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is also along the road.

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of Hot 41, and it was also the road for the Great Migration of African Americans to the North,

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starting in the early 1900s and going to 1970.

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Before there were roads, before there were roads with automobiles, there were railroads. And there were lots of railroads. And…

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And many of them parallel the highway.

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Many have been repurposed, um, but there are also many working railroads that still exist all through the road. This is in Newberry, Florida.

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And there were also factories, and as the country industrialized, factories grew,

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This is a Toyota plant that is just outside of Evansville, Indiana.

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But there are shuttered factories from old, old ones, there are new distribution facilities.

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There are, um…

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Um, all kinds of different, um, industrial locations along the highway.

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So, our second chapter is really about the automobile.

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And there were 20-odd million cars, registered cars, vehicles, in the United States,

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Um, in… around… around 100 years ago, when the road was first

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built, or first, first, um…

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utilized. Would anybody want to hazard a guess? No.

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Um, we are looking at roughly, approximately 285 million registered cars in the United States.

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Along with 35 million trucks.

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The car was the AI of another era.

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It was a huge, huge step up. It was liberating for

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Um, small towns, um, where you could go from one place to another.

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It was liberating for females who could travel alone.

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Um, it was far… farms could take their, uh,

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products to market much easier. It was a huge, huge development in the country.

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But it needed roads. And the early roads were all trails, uh, highways, trails, they were all given names.

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Um, and so some of these names are still, still with us in, you know, in signage and such.

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If you go to the Hampton Hotel in Chicago, it was the former hotel, um…

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headquarters of the American Automobile Association,

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And there, you can see this great mural, and this is the legend from the mural. You can see the Yellowstone Trail and the Pacific Highway, and Oregon Trail.

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And by the way, it was a mess. If you look at the very early atlases with all these trails, there was no way to know where one was from another.

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So, roads…

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were… kind of came into being because of a necessity.

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Highway 41 was once part of the so-called Dixie Highway.

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The Dixie Highway was the brainchild of, um, a guy that we will talk about a bit in our Florida chapter.

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And, um, and…

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And it was…

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Never consummated. I-75 is probably the closest approximation we have.

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to the Dixie Highway at this point.

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Uh, there are, um, all kinds of internet, um, postings, um, where you can… where they, they have, um, they, they plot out what the Dixie Highway was going to be.

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But it never really came to fruition.

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Highway 41 had all kinds of interesting early development, people who were, um,

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part of that, these were two early characters that I thought were particularly interesting and fascinating.

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The lady on your left was Alma Rittenberry.

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Uh, Miss Alma, to many. She was from Birmingham, Alabama.

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And she was one of the very first female licensed, um, drivers in the United States.

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She was also very well off.

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And she proposed a highway from New Orleans to Chicago that would be called the Jackson Highway.

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She was elbowed out by a group of business people, uh, business guys, in her view, in the 1917, who wanted to see a road that was plotted further east.

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And she was ticked, and so she started the Dixie Bee Association.

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And Alma did not live a long life, but really, she was one of the very seminal characters in kind of the road that is 41 today.

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The guy on the right was a guy by the name of A.V. Birch.

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A.V. Birch was from Evansville, Indiana. He was born in a log cabin,

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He made millions selling farm implements. He was Indiana’s first highway commissioner.

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And he really pushed hard.

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hard for 41 to become a great road.

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and proselytized for it.

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He was a… he was a colorful guy. He ran for office 3 times and lost 3 times.

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He divorced his first wife of 50 years to marry a hairdresser, divorced her after 2 years to marry a Hatchet girl.

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Very interesting character.

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So we begin our journey, um, and from we, with the north, the Upper Peninsula, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana.

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And we start in the Upper Peninsula, known to locals as the UP.

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The UP is a huge expanse of country. It is…

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29% of the total land mass of the state of Michigan.

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But only 3% of the population.

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And you can see the road from Copper Harbor down to Menominee, but there’s so much country

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surrounding it, thickly wooded, but very isolated. The pictured rocks National Seashore is there.

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Um, Isle Royale,

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The least visited, one of the least visited national parks in the country. You can take a ferry from Copper Harbor, too.

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Sault Ste. Marie, you take a bridge to Canada,

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And there’s the Mackinac Bridge that goes down to the rest of the state of Michigan.

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The UP is gorgeous, gorgeous country.

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And this is along the Kiwani Peninsula, um, spectacular country.

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And if you can go in the fall, the colors are just phenomenal to see.

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But it isn’t around the corner from anything, and that is one of the problems, um, um,

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of the… that the UP has had to deal with.

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spectacular places of nature. This is Canyon Falls State Park, right along the highway.

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But why did people come to the UP in the first place to get rich?

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There was a big copper strike.

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In the 1840s, and a big iron ore strike not much later.

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And the copper… the copper mines were played out over a period of time.

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There is still iron ore mined, um, but the mines, by and large, have closed.

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This is the Quincy mine that is a tourist mine, which is in the UP.

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in the Keweenaw Peninsula.

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Tourism and recreation are really the big hallmarks of the UP economy at this time, and Marquette, Michigan, is where this picture is taken.

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is kind of the administrative center, um, for… for the Upper Peninsula.

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that big, hulking thing you see in the background is an iron ore dock that is now on the National Historic Register, but you see sailboats, you see condominiums,

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Uh, people come to fish and hunt and sail and play golf, and

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and bike, and all kinds of things.

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So we move from the UP,

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to Wisconsin.

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And I like this sign, or this drawing, because what do most people signify? You know, what do they associate with Wisconsin with?

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Cheese. If you’ve ever had a frozen pizza, you’ve probably had Wisconsin cheese on it.

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The road from… through Wisconsin

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is… is mainly two-lane until Green Bay, and from Green Bay to Kenosha, it is the only stretch of the highway

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that is now an interstate. It is Interstate 41.

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So, what I often would do in most states is I would get on the older portion of the road,

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And… and take that. And that takes you through the towns, and…

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It is one… it is row…

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Highway 175, State Road 175 in Wisconsin.

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a lot of the stretch of Highway 41 through Wisconsin is nearby Lake Michigan, or very close by, and Door County, the Cape Cod of the Midwest, is located nearby.

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It is, um, it is pretty, it’s very pretty area. There’s farm country that goes right to the, uh, to the edge of Lake Michigan. In some cases.

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Um, this is a lighthouse near Racine, Wisconsin.

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We often associate Wisconsin with the Dairy state, and dairy farms, and cows, and milk, and such, and it is still a dairy state.

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But unfortunately, it has had a crisis of sorts. There are fewer of these nice, pleasant dairy farms.

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They’re being abandoned, uh, they’re being sold for other real estate purposes.

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Um, children of farmers are not going into the business as they once did.

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There’s a lot of consolidation that is going on.

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It’s a quiet crisis in much of rural Wisconsin.

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the dairy farms.

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Green Bay is the first significant city,

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as we move from the north to the south.

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Green Bay is very old. Green Bay was settled by the indigenous peoples in… centuries ago.

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The French came to Green Bay and settled there in 1634,

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It’s really historical.

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That history should be celebrated, but what do we know about Green Bay? We know about the Green Bay Packers.

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It is the smallest city that hosts an NFL team.

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Green Bay Packers are worth approximately $5 billion at this point, meaning it’s a very valuable, uh, chip to have for a small town.

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And much of the business of the area has centered itself around Lambeau Field.

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where this picture is taken.

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We move south, and we move to our first kind of large city of sorts, which is Milwaukee.

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There’s Fonzie, the Bronze Fonz, he on the Milwaukee River in downtown Milwaukee.

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And Milwaukee is an interesting city because it once was a very much

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all about manufacturing, and um…

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And it is moving much more towards technology and other things. It embraces the new,

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It has a real culinary scene, a music scene, the arts are present.

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But one thing that’s really cool about Milwaukee is that it continues to have the old

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Old buildings that have been repurposed,

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The Pfister is one of the classic old hotels. By the way, it’s haunted.

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Um, Milwaukee is a really fun city to visit.

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And one thing you need to do when you’re in Wisconsin, you need to go to a supper club.

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The, uh, Wisconsin Supper Clubs are a mainstay of the state. I hope they never go away, where you can get a fantastic brandy old-fashioned.

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You can get a fish fry on Fridays, and a relish tray, and this is the hobnob, which is near Kenosha.

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And we move to the state of Illinois.

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Abraham Lincoln said it was the heart of the nation.

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There are many people who would say it… say very different things about the state of Illinois.

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I’m a resident, so I’ve heard them all.

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The Highway 41 through Illinois only extends for 64 miles.

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But it is a significant…

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highway, because it is in the Chicago Mega Region.

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The Chicago Mega Region extends pretty much from Kenoshaung, you know, just across the border in Wisconsin.

00:22:01.000 –> 00:22:05.000
to New Buffalo, right across the border in Michigan.

00:22:05.000 –> 00:22:10.000
And it comprises approximately 9.5 million people.

00:22:10.000 –> 00:22:20.000
It is complicated and complex. Chicago was the third largest city in the country. This is a view along the Chicago River.

00:22:20.000 –> 00:22:26.000
Why was Chicago important? Why did it grow? It grew because of transportation.

00:22:26.000 –> 00:22:28.000
It was at a…

00:22:28.000 –> 00:22:36.000
Perfect confluence. There was the waterways from the Mississippi River to the Des Plains,

00:22:36.000 –> 00:22:40.000
And then there was a portage site that was built.

00:22:40.000 –> 00:22:42.000
to cover kind of a swampy…

00:22:42.000 –> 00:22:50.000
piece of area to the Chicago River, which would then take, um, boats to the Great Lakes.

00:22:50.000 –> 00:23:00.000
And so, when waterways dominated, that’s why it grew, and from there, it became a major rail center, which it still is today.

00:23:00.000 –> 00:23:05.000
And a major transportation center for trucking and highways, which it still is today.

00:23:05.000 –> 00:23:14.000
In fact, it is the most congested city in the world per, um, the latest highway calculations.

00:23:14.000 –> 00:23:17.000
So, the North Shore…

00:23:17.000 –> 00:23:31.000
of… of the, um, area of Illinois comprises a lot of very wealthy communities. Some of the… some of the wealthiest suburbs in the country. Ravinia is a long-standing, um,

00:23:31.000 –> 00:23:33.000
a place for concerts.

00:23:33.000 –> 00:23:45.000
Um, and… and there’s beautiful, beautiful homes all along it, lots and lots of, um, people with very high incomes live on the North Shore.

00:23:45.000 –> 00:23:50.000
If I have tourists come, I always try to take them to Wilmette.

00:23:50.000 –> 00:23:55.000
and the Baha’i house of worship, which exists right along

00:23:55.000 –> 00:24:01.000
Um, and it’s a gorgeous, gorgeous, with gardens and such.

00:24:01.000 –> 00:24:04.000
And so we get to the drive.

00:24:04.000 –> 00:24:11.000
as it comes into the city of Chicago. And every year, around Labor Day,

00:24:11.000 –> 00:24:22.000
one day out of the year, you can bicycle on it, um, in the morning, and see the road for what it once was. It was a boulevard.

00:24:22.000 –> 00:24:27.000
And it was a boulevard with carriages and big, fine houses.

00:24:27.000 –> 00:24:31.000
And unfortunately, it’s much more of an expressway now.

00:24:31.000 –> 00:24:37.000
And there have been all kinds of ideas as to how to change that configuration.

00:24:37.000 –> 00:24:43.000
And we’re just gonna have to see what eventually transpires.

00:24:43.000 –> 00:24:47.000
When Chicago and the surrounding areas board flat,

00:24:47.000 –> 00:24:56.000
And so, when you come along it, you see this Oz-like situation with all these buildings out of the skyline that are rising out of the prairie.

00:24:56.000 –> 00:25:00.000
right along the road, as it skirts the road.

00:25:00.000 –> 00:25:06.000
Grant Park in Buckingham Fountain, one of the iconic pieces of the Chicago area.

00:25:06.000 –> 00:25:15.000
And many people don’t go to the south, south side of the city, and that’s about to change, probably. This is the South Shore Cultural Center.

00:25:15.000 –> 00:25:20.000
However, this is probably going to be the bigger attraction.

00:25:20.000 –> 00:25:26.000
The Obama Presidential Center opens officially on Friday of this week.

00:25:26.000 –> 00:25:34.000
And my wife and I were lucky enough to be able to tour it, because of her association with the Architecture Foundation.

00:25:34.000 –> 00:25:41.000
And it’s fantastic. We were able to see it in May, as they were still kind of putting finishing touches to it.

00:25:41.000 –> 00:25:49.000
It’s a… it’s going to be a big tourist magnet, I am pretty certain of that.

00:25:49.000 –> 00:26:00.000
So, not far from the road, um, again, as we are about to leave the Chicago and Illinois, is the Pullman National Historical Park.

00:26:00.000 –> 00:26:07.000
Pullman was a city created. George Pullman, who created the Pullman rail cars,

00:26:07.000 –> 00:26:16.000
Uh, big, big labor strike, lots of labor history. It’s a really fascinating place to see.

00:26:16.000 –> 00:26:21.000
And we come into the state of Indiana.

00:26:21.000 –> 00:26:27.000
Highway 41 extends from the top of Indiana almost all the way to the bottom.

00:26:27.000 –> 00:26:32.000
And through lots of smaller, smaller cities,

00:26:32.000 –> 00:26:38.000
It is the motto of the state is the Crossroads of America.

00:26:38.000 –> 00:26:42.000
What I would also say is you probably can’t get anywhere else.

00:26:42.000 –> 00:26:45.000
more interesting, without having to go through Indiana.

00:26:45.000 –> 00:26:49.000
And that said, as a native of the… as a native Hoosier person.

00:26:49.000 –> 00:26:56.000
Um, some of the best farmland in the world is located in Indiana, by the way.

00:26:56.000 –> 00:26:58.000
The very top part

00:26:58.000 –> 00:27:08.000
of the, um, of the rundown is… comprises the Calumet region, or known to locals as the region. This was very blue-collar,

00:27:08.000 –> 00:27:14.000
Heavy, big steel industry, oil refineries. It’s still very industrial.

00:27:14.000 –> 00:27:17.000
However, it’s also become a big medical center,

00:27:17.000 –> 00:27:22.000
And a much more diversified population as well.

00:27:22.000 –> 00:27:33.000
This miner Dunn Hamburgers is in Highland, Indiana, and if you walked in the door, you’d swear you could be in a place 70 years ago and see the same exact same things.

00:27:33.000 –> 00:27:35.000
So we leave the region,

00:27:35.000 –> 00:27:42.000
And we move on south, we come to farmland, and lots of the windmills,

00:27:42.000 –> 00:27:46.000
that are out in a couple counties along the way.

00:27:46.000 –> 00:27:50.000
And there are some interesting small towns to come and see.

00:27:50.000 –> 00:27:55.000
This is an Art Deco movie theater in a little farm town called Fowler.

00:27:55.000 –> 00:27:58.000
It dates from 1940.

00:27:58.000 –> 00:28:03.000
It was slated for demolition, but the townspeople saved it. They show first-run movies.

00:28:03.000 –> 00:28:05.000
Really fun place to see.

00:28:05.000 –> 00:28:11.000
But you’re also going to see small towns, and not just in Indiana, but throughout the road.

00:28:11.000 –> 00:28:18.000
that are not doing so well. This is Carlisle, Indiana, and a lot of towns,

00:28:18.000 –> 00:28:23.000
As farmers have moved away and consolidation of that,

00:28:23.000 –> 00:28:31.000
Um, have no real reason for being if they’re not a suburb, or what have you, or near a college, um…

00:28:31.000 –> 00:28:37.000
And, you know, we’re just gonna have to see what development can take place.

00:28:37.000 –> 00:28:46.000
Along the road, there is covered bridges, there’s some very pretty country. If you get on the old 41 portion of the road.

00:28:46.000 –> 00:28:53.000
And we come to Vincennes, Indiana, where the George Rogers Clark Memorial is.

00:28:53.000 –> 00:28:58.000
This is a huge structure. It’s just like the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.

00:28:58.000 –> 00:29:07.000
It honors George Rogers Clark with the Battle of Vincennes. Um, there’s been a lot of historical revisionism as to, uh,

00:29:07.000 –> 00:29:12.000
Whether or not George Rogers Clark really deserved some big, big monument.

00:29:12.000 –> 00:29:20.000
I went in there, I was the only person in there, I and the four park ranger had a real nice chat.

00:29:20.000 –> 00:29:31.000
And what you’re gonna also see all along the road, not just in Indiana, but all through, are footnotes, these little markers, you don’t see every marker, but you should stop and see a few.

00:29:31.000 –> 00:29:36.000
This is in Vincennes, honoring Mary Clark. Mary Clark was a slave

00:29:36.000 –> 00:29:53.000
that… that, um, was in Kentucky. Her owner brought her to Indiana and said she’s an indentured servant. Indiana was part of the Northwest Compromise that didn’t include slavery. Mary Clark said, no, I am a free person.

00:29:53.000 –> 00:30:00.000
She took her case to court and won in 1821.

00:30:00.000 –> 00:30:13.000
Evansville, Indiana is the third largest city in the state, and it’s a river city, it is kind of a tri-state, important to Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky. The Willard Library is a

00:30:13.000 –> 00:30:15.000
real old specimen.

00:30:15.000 –> 00:30:20.000
It’s got some really interesting buildings, historical buildings.

00:30:20.000 –> 00:30:29.000
And not far away from Evansville is the town of New Harmony. New Harmony, uh, was a utopian community.

00:30:29.000 –> 00:30:42.000
established long, long ago, um, it didn’t work, um, but the forebearers of New Harmony, one of them was Jane Owens. She was the granddaughter of one of the founders.

00:30:42.000 –> 00:30:50.000
And she was living in Texas. She, Jane Owens, was the recipient of two Texas oil fortunes.

00:30:50.000 –> 00:30:58.000
And plumped all kinds of money back into New Harmony. This is the Philip Johnson-designed Roofless Church that exists there.

00:30:58.000 –> 00:31:00.000
So we come south.

00:31:00.000 –> 00:31:05.000
Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Florida.

00:31:05.000 –> 00:31:07.000
And we start in Kentucky.

00:31:07.000 –> 00:31:11.000
And the road is 100… only 106 miles, um,

00:31:11.000 –> 00:31:14.000
through western Kentucky, but it’s

00:31:14.000 –> 00:31:20.000
But it was really fascinating. Some of my favorite places along the road were in Kentucky.

00:31:20.000 –> 00:31:27.000
Mammoth Cave, the largest cave system that is known in the world, largest known cave system,

00:31:27.000 –> 00:31:36.000
Paducah is a really pleasant river town, old river town, land between the lakes is a big recreational area.

00:31:36.000 –> 00:31:40.000
And we start in Henderson, an old river town.

00:31:40.000 –> 00:31:47.000
Where Central Park is located, this is the Rebecca Fountain there, and…

00:31:47.000 –> 00:31:55.000
the Central Park was created in 1797, the oldest park west of the Alleghenies.

00:31:55.000 –> 00:32:02.000
Also in Henderson is one of the Carnegie Public Libraries. You see a lot of them along the way,

00:32:02.000 –> 00:32:08.000
And this is a really, really beautiful cupola that is located there.

00:32:08.000 –> 00:32:15.000
Within this area is a little, um, area devoted to Mary Towel Sassin.

00:32:15.000 –> 00:32:20.000
She was one of the originators of Mother’s Day.

00:32:20.000 –> 00:32:27.000
We move on, we come to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, or Hoptown, as the locals call it.

00:32:27.000 –> 00:32:34.000
Hopkinsville is a neat town to see because it kind of just stood in time.

00:32:34.000 –> 00:32:39.000
Uh, there’s not a lot of new construction, and so you’ve got these beautiful, old buildings.

00:32:39.000 –> 00:32:43.000
that are in the downtown area.

00:32:43.000 –> 00:32:48.000
Just outside of Hopkinsville is a very sobering monument.

00:32:48.000 –> 00:32:50.000
to the Trail of Tears.

00:32:50.000 –> 00:32:56.000
And this is the first of several along the road that one sees. The Trail of Tears.

00:32:56.000 –> 00:33:02.000
The 5,000-mile trail of Indigenous people from

00:33:02.000 –> 00:33:06.000
eastern United States to Oklahoma reservations.

00:33:06.000 –> 00:33:12.000
And it was something that I knew very little about.

00:33:12.000 –> 00:33:20.000
lots of rural scenery to see. This is tobacco country that you go through.

00:33:20.000 –> 00:33:23.000
And this is the Jefferson Davis Memorial.

00:33:23.000 –> 00:33:30.000
And if it looks like the Washington Memorial, you are quite right. It was built in the 1920s.

00:33:30.000 –> 00:33:34.000
Honoring Jefferson Davis. It’s in Fairview, Kentucky.

00:33:34.000 –> 00:33:39.000
Uh, Fairview has a population of about 140 people. It’s a little farm town.

00:33:39.000 –> 00:33:48.000
I was the only visitor, um, the guy who was, like, the ranger of sorts, and he had a dart, a little pinboard,

00:33:48.000 –> 00:33:52.000
And he put in pins where, from all the visitors who would stop by.

00:33:52.000 –> 00:33:56.000
It’s very, very interesting, kind of weird.

00:33:56.000 –> 00:34:01.000
Uh, but you do see lots and lots of Confederate monuments along the highway.

00:34:01.000 –> 00:34:04.000
There are all kinds of roadside oddities.

00:34:04.000 –> 00:34:07.000
through Kentucky.

00:34:07.000 –> 00:34:10.000
And we come into Tennessee.

00:34:10.000 –> 00:34:14.000
in Tennessee, Governor Lamar Alexander said,

00:34:14.000 –> 00:34:20.000
you know, the only thing that unites this state is music, and he is quite correct in that regard.

00:34:20.000 –> 00:34:24.000
The road kind of cuts a, uh…

00:34:24.000 –> 00:34:30.000
Wow, wow, we are just moving along. The road cuts a diagonal through Tennessee,

00:34:30.000 –> 00:34:37.000
And… the first town you see is Clarksville. Clarksville has a museum there.

00:34:37.000 –> 00:34:47.000
Um, and within the museum is the Wilma Rudolph exhibit. Wilma Rudolph, a… one of the great athletes of the last century.

00:34:47.000 –> 00:34:55.000
Wilma Rudolph came back to Clarksville, they wanted to have a big reception in her honor, and she said, I will attend it if it’s integrated.

00:34:55.000 –> 00:34:59.000
And integration came to Clarksville, Tennessee.

00:34:59.000 –> 00:35:04.000
So we move on, we move on to, um, Springfield, Tennessee.

00:35:04.000 –> 00:35:11.000
And this is not far from Nashville, and now you’re going to see a farmstown, former farm town, that’s all spruced up.

00:35:11.000 –> 00:35:14.000
Because it’s much more of a suburb.

00:35:14.000 –> 00:35:20.000
Because Nashville is sprawling. Nashville has grown a great deal.

00:35:20.000 –> 00:35:31.000
This is the district area. This is where the tourists are, this is where the honky-tonk places are, the inebriated patrons along the sidewalk, the bachelorette parties.

00:35:31.000 –> 00:35:35.000
And oftentimes, this is all tourists will see.

00:35:35.000 –> 00:35:38.000
However, Nashville is booming.

00:35:38.000 –> 00:35:42.000
All kinds of construction has been happening through the city.

00:35:42.000 –> 00:35:53.000
And with that growth, though, comes a lot of issues, and one of them is a road system that is just not built for the amount of people that have now moved there.

00:35:53.000 –> 00:35:58.000
So, it’s really congested, there isn’t a lot of public transportation.

00:35:58.000 –> 00:36:08.000
There is no real bike, bike paths or such, um, and the city is grappling with a lot of growth issues.

00:36:08.000 –> 00:36:19.000
Right out… right near Vanderbilt University in Nashville is the 1897 Parthenon Building, and within that is the Statue of Athena.

00:36:19.000 –> 00:36:28.000
Very cool, weird thing to see. And then just south of Nashville is some really, really pretty country that you will go through.

00:36:28.000 –> 00:36:31.000
Um, some gorgeous parks and forests.

00:36:31.000 –> 00:36:37.000
Some beautiful rural scenery that you will pass by. Very pretty drive.

00:36:37.000 –> 00:36:39.000
And we come to the Tennessee River,

00:36:39.000 –> 00:36:47.000
And that is I-24, and I am on a bridge overlooking I-24, I’m 41 overlooking I-24.

00:36:47.000 –> 00:36:53.000
It goes nearby. As we move on, we come to Lookout Mountain.

00:36:53.000 –> 00:36:59.000
And you’re overlooking Chattanooga, and this is Moccasin Bend.

00:36:59.000 –> 00:37:02.000
Uh, beautiful, beautiful location.

00:37:02.000 –> 00:37:08.000
with all kinds of historical pieces, big tourist area, too, with Ruby Falls.

00:37:08.000 –> 00:37:11.000
And we are in Chattanooga.

00:37:11.000 –> 00:37:18.000
Chattanooga was, and still is, a big transportation center. It’s becoming a big technology center as well.

00:37:18.000 –> 00:37:29.000
Once upon a time, Chattanooga, one of the most polluted cities in the country, is now one of the cleanest. It gets all kinds of awards for its, um,

00:37:29.000 –> 00:37:31.000
its use of parks.

00:37:31.000 –> 00:37:35.000
Uh, it’s a big retirement destination now.

00:37:35.000 –> 00:37:39.000
And we move to the state of Georgia.

00:37:39.000 –> 00:37:45.000
And 41 cuts a big, long path through Georgia, some 387 miles.

00:37:45.000 –> 00:37:47.000
through Georgia.

00:37:47.000 –> 00:37:49.000
And the first stop we want to make

00:37:49.000 –> 00:37:52.000
is the Chattanooga Chickamauga Battlefield

00:37:52.000 –> 00:38:04.000
It was one of the horrendous battles that took place. There are, as I said, numerous battlefields along the way. The National Park Service does a really, really wonderful job of keeping up

00:38:04.000 –> 00:38:08.000
They have very knowledgeable guides,

00:38:08.000 –> 00:38:11.000
These are really beautiful places to see.

00:38:11.000 –> 00:38:17.000
We move on into Dalton. Dalton with the peacock symbolizing the city.

00:38:17.000 –> 00:38:25.000
The carpet center of America now, um, there’s a statue in Dalton to Catherine Wittner.

00:38:25.000 –> 00:38:32.000
who at 12 years old, started… established a tufted carpeting. She made a quilt,

00:38:32.000 –> 00:38:40.000
And everybody liked it, and then eventually, she had a small army of women who made quilts and chenille bedspreads.

00:38:40.000 –> 00:38:43.000
For tourists coming down from the north,

00:38:43.000 –> 00:38:48.000
And the carpet companies moved in after World War II.

00:38:48.000 –> 00:38:52.000
Further down is a statue of Sequoia.

00:38:52.000 –> 00:38:54.000
Sequoia, a polymath,

00:38:54.000 –> 00:38:58.000
who developed the Cherokee alphabet,

00:38:58.000 –> 00:39:02.000
Uh, very, very important figure in Indigenous, um,

00:39:02.000 –> 00:39:05.000
within the Indigenous Heartland community.

00:39:05.000 –> 00:39:09.000
And a very sad place, which is new at Chota.

00:39:09.000 –> 00:39:12.000
This was the Cherokee National Capital,

00:39:12.000 –> 00:39:15.000
And this was also where the Trail of Tears began.

00:39:15.000 –> 00:39:22.000
It is hallowed ground, it is very beautiful, it’s… it’s very haunted in many ways.

00:39:22.000 –> 00:39:25.000
Um, every year,

00:39:25.000 –> 00:39:34.000
reservations, students from high schools in Oklahoma come to Newat Shota to have graduation ceremonies.

00:39:34.000 –> 00:39:42.000
Not far away, and kind of out in the middle of nowhere, but so cool to see, is Howard Finster’s Paradise Garden.

00:39:42.000 –> 00:39:45.000
Howard Finster, a self-taught preacher, artist,

00:39:45.000 –> 00:39:50.000
Whose, uh, work is now exhibited in museums around the world.

00:39:50.000 –> 00:39:54.000
It’s a fascinating place to see. There’s a festival every year.

00:39:54.000 –> 00:40:04.000
There. We move on, we’re coming now down into the Atlanta area. There’s the big chicken, which exists right outside in Marietta, Georgia.

00:40:04.000 –> 00:40:06.000
And we come to Atlanta.

00:40:06.000 –> 00:40:09.000
Atlanta is a massive city.

00:40:09.000 –> 00:40:17.000
For people who have, um, who know Los Angeles and Houston, I think Atlanta is very reminiscent of both.

00:40:17.000 –> 00:40:19.000
Uh, this is Centennial Park.

00:40:19.000 –> 00:40:25.000
where the 1996 Olympics were held, lots of ceremonies and such.

00:40:25.000 –> 00:40:35.000
Atlanta has fascinating things for a large city, it was… it’s a place that I feel like I’d need to spend several weeks.

00:40:35.000 –> 00:40:38.000
The Oakland Cemetery is very old.

00:40:38.000 –> 00:40:45.000
Um, where lots of luminaries are buried, the golfer Bobby Jones, the writer Margaret Mitchell,

00:40:45.000 –> 00:40:49.000
Kenny Rogers is buried in the Oakland Cemetery.

00:40:49.000 –> 00:40:58.000
The King Center, honoring Dr. Martin Luther King and his wife, Coretta, is located in the sweet Auburn neighborhood of Atlanta.

00:40:58.000 –> 00:41:01.000
well worth coming to and seeing.

00:41:01.000 –> 00:41:07.000
As is the Carter Center, where the Presidential Museum for President Jimmy Carter,

00:41:07.000 –> 00:41:11.000
and the Carter Center that he established is located.

00:41:11.000 –> 00:41:20.000
Atlanta has lots and lots of very cool, interesting neighborhoods. It has a great culinary scene.

00:41:20.000 –> 00:41:26.000
There’s no way I can describe this city without saying just how interesting it is.

00:41:26.000 –> 00:41:33.000
But unfortunately, one of the big, big problems Atlanta has is just the enormous traffic congestion.

00:41:33.000 –> 00:41:35.000
that it has… that it’s throughout it.

00:41:35.000 –> 00:41:39.000
So we move out of Atlanta, and we move to Jonesboro,

00:41:39.000 –> 00:41:49.000
Um, Georgia, where Stately Oaks, the mansion that, um, was portrayed as Terra in Gone with the Wind, is located.

00:41:49.000 –> 00:41:56.000
I had a tour of Stately Oaks by two wonderful guys in their hoop skirts. I was the only person touring

00:41:56.000 –> 00:41:59.000
It was great.

00:41:59.000 –> 00:42:01.000
We move into middle Georgia.

00:42:01.000 –> 00:42:08.000
And the Og Mulgee Mounds National Historical Park is located there. The Mound people

00:42:08.000 –> 00:42:16.000
This is the lodge, one of the old… the oldest lodge that we know of in North America.

00:42:16.000 –> 00:42:23.000
And Rose Hill Cemetery is located there. Rose Hill Cemetery dating from the 1840s.

00:42:23.000 –> 00:42:34.000
Phenomenal place to go see great statues. It is also the burial place for members of the Allman Brothers Band, four of them are buried there.

00:42:34.000 –> 00:42:38.000
And there it is the sight.

00:42:38.000 –> 00:42:54.000
Macon has a really, really nice downtown that is being referred. There’s a lot to do in Macon. There’s Otis Redding Museum, there’s a museum devoted to Little Richard, there’s really great stuff. I’d love to spend more time in Macon.

00:42:54.000 –> 00:42:58.000
And… and so we moved to South Georgia.

00:42:58.000 –> 00:43:07.000
This is in Vienna, Georgia. You see that bus? That bus is full of watermelons that is going to a weighing center.

00:43:07.000 –> 00:43:10.000
Um, very agricultural area.

00:43:10.000 –> 00:43:15.000
A lot of signage that is, um, that advertises, um,

00:43:15.000 –> 00:43:23.000
things along… along 41 are in Georgia, and it’s really the only place that I saw real significant signage.

00:43:23.000 –> 00:43:30.000
South Georgia has really interesting, quirky towns. I really loved Tifton, Georgia.

00:43:30.000 –> 00:43:38.000
Um, it’s a town that probably could have folded up the tent once the interstate bypassed it, but it didn’t.

00:43:38.000 –> 00:43:43.000
It’s a fun place. It’s thriving, really nice.

00:43:43.000 –> 00:43:47.000
We get to Valdosta at the border.

00:43:47.000 –> 00:43:54.000
And near the border, um, Valdosta was hard hit by the recent hurricanes that took place.

00:43:54.000 –> 00:44:01.000
a lot of flooding that took place. The downtown has… is really still kind of recovering.

00:44:01.000 –> 00:44:06.000
much of the commerce of Aldasta is nearby I-75.

00:44:06.000 –> 00:44:08.000
We come to Florida,

00:44:08.000 –> 00:44:14.000
And I had 2 chapters, because the road through Florida is so big.

00:44:14.000 –> 00:44:19.000
Um, the first chapter comprising from the Border to Tampa.

00:44:19.000 –> 00:44:30.000
And that is Old Florida in many ways, and Old Florida is an area in transition. I would tell people to go see it, and see it now, because I’m not sure

00:44:30.000 –> 00:44:34.000
Uh, whether or not it will stay the same with lots of construction.

00:44:34.000 –> 00:44:36.000
that is occurring.

00:44:36.000 –> 00:44:45.000
This is the Stephen Foster Park in White Springs. Stephen Foster wrote Old Swanee, or the Swanee River song.

00:44:45.000 –> 00:44:48.000
By the way, he never set foot in Florida.

00:44:48.000 –> 00:44:52.000
This is a barber shop in Newberry, Florida.

00:44:52.000 –> 00:44:58.000
This is Rainbow Springs Park in, um, in Central Florida.

00:44:58.000 –> 00:45:07.000
Rainbow Springs was a big, big tourist attraction, and then Disney World was put in, and the private tourist attraction went bankrupt.

00:45:07.000 –> 00:45:12.000
And now it’s run by the state. It’s a very pretty area.

00:45:12.000 –> 00:45:19.000
There’s the Blues Brothers, uh, near Donillan, Florida. No, there’s no real reason for them.

00:45:19.000 –> 00:45:24.000
And we get to the Wiki-watchy State Park,

00:45:24.000 –> 00:45:32.000
where the mermaid shows are held, the Wiki Wachy mermaids shows have been ongoing since 1947.

00:45:32.000 –> 00:45:35.000
A piece of old Florida.

00:45:35.000 –> 00:45:39.000
There’s a bookstore that I hope will sell my book. It was closed, though.

00:45:39.000 –> 00:45:41.000
And we get to Tampa.

00:45:41.000 –> 00:45:47.000
And this is… this is the Henry Plant Museum, and…

00:45:47.000 –> 00:45:53.000
the University of Tampa is a landmark. Henry Plant was an industrialist.

00:45:53.000 –> 00:45:58.000
This is… this was… dates from the 1890s.

00:45:58.000 –> 00:46:01.000
Tampa is super old. Tampa, um…

00:46:01.000 –> 00:46:05.000
centuries of Indigenous settlement,

00:46:05.000 –> 00:46:09.000
And then the Spanish arrived in the early 1500s,

00:46:09.000 –> 00:46:14.000
And it has a fantastic old history.

00:46:14.000 –> 00:46:19.000
And it’s beginning to utilize, um, old things, like streetcars.

00:46:19.000 –> 00:46:22.000
to, uh, move people around.

00:46:22.000 –> 00:46:28.000
It’s the town, like Nashville, has become an its city, it’s grown very quickly.

00:46:28.000 –> 00:46:30.000
And that has meant

00:46:30.000 –> 00:46:32.000
high real estate values,

00:46:32.000 –> 00:46:42.000
Um, the problem that Tampa has is that it is also possibly in the eye of another hurricane. It was just missed by Hurricane Milton

00:46:42.000 –> 00:46:44.000
Two years ago.

00:46:44.000 –> 00:46:46.000
The rooster is symbolic.

00:46:46.000 –> 00:46:53.000
of Tampa and Ybor City area, which is a big, um, entertainment and dining area.

00:46:53.000 –> 00:46:58.000
We come to SoFlo, South Florida, the TAM Miami Trail.

00:46:58.000 –> 00:47:03.000
Where the big topics that are in my chapter, very much about growth,

00:47:03.000 –> 00:47:08.000
Phenomenal growth over the last 25 years.

00:47:08.000 –> 00:47:14.000
But also, with attendant climate change. Massive hurricanes have occurred,

00:47:14.000 –> 00:47:19.000
And we… I would expect we’ll see more.

00:47:19.000 –> 00:47:30.000
The problem, and one of the sadder things about kind of my drive through this area, it’s very congested, a lot of the road is like a very stri… much more strip mall stuff.

00:47:30.000 –> 00:47:37.000
The Ruskin Drive-In is the only drive-in left on the Gulf Coast. It was run by a retired couple.

00:47:37.000 –> 00:47:42.000
that I met. There’s a big Amazon distribution facility next to it.

00:47:42.000 –> 00:47:49.000
I hope these people… they said they’re getting real estate offers all the time. I hope they stick on.

00:47:49.000 –> 00:47:55.000
As you move on, you come to Sarasota, where Cotazan is located. Cotazan

00:47:55.000 –> 00:48:02.000
the home of John and Mabel Ringling, of the Ringling Brothers Circus.

00:48:02.000 –> 00:48:09.000
And… and Tampa and Sarasota is very, very congested.

00:48:09.000 –> 00:48:12.000
We move on to…

00:48:12.000 –> 00:48:23.000
why people come to Florida. Oh, God, I know I’m going way over, um, and… and I know you’re probably going to get very angry with me, but let’s try to finish at least Florida, okay?

00:48:23.000 –> 00:48:24.000
We come to…

00:48:24.000 –> 00:48:27.000
Okay, Chris, if you can wrap it up in about 5 minutes, that would be great.

00:48:27.000 –> 00:48:30.000
5 minutes it is, okay?

00:48:30.000 –> 00:48:31.000
All right, thank you

00:48:31.000 –> 00:48:38.000
Um, Venice Beach, one of the beaches along the road. Here is the 41 across the Peace River Bridge.

00:48:38.000 –> 00:48:47.000
Lots and lots of these private residences are along the road. Cape Coral is an area with many of these.

00:48:47.000 –> 00:48:57.000
If you can get off of 41 and get on, or get off the main road and get on some of the old 41 area, there’s some interesting things to see. As we come into Naples,

00:48:57.000 –> 00:49:01.000
Naples, very, very wealthy community.

00:49:01.000 –> 00:49:07.000
Um, that is having a hard problem getting service workers because they can’t afford to live there.

00:49:07.000 –> 00:49:10.000
There’s a shell shack that is, um,

00:49:10.000 –> 00:49:13.000
that is part of Old Florida.

00:49:13.000 –> 00:49:19.000
And we come to the Everglades area, where there’s a statue of two Baron Collier,

00:49:19.000 –> 00:49:25.000
Barron Collier put up the money to establish the Tam Miami Trail.

00:49:25.000 –> 00:49:32.000
And the Everglades, the river of grass is gorgeous, it’s beautiful, you need to see it.

00:49:32.000 –> 00:49:37.000
It’s very fragile, though, and the Tim Miami Trail has

00:49:37.000 –> 00:49:48.000
billions have been spent to redo it, because their floodwaters, the water and natural water, could not go around it, so they’ve had to build culverts underneath.

00:49:48.000 –> 00:49:52.000
You see alligators in the Everglades, up close and personal.

00:49:52.000 –> 00:49:56.000
See the smallest post office in Ochobee, Florida.

00:49:56.000 –> 00:50:01.000
And you’ll want to stop at Joanie’s Blue Crab Cafe along the way.

00:50:01.000 –> 00:50:08.000
very sobering monument to the ValueJet Flight 592 that crashed.

00:50:08.000 –> 00:50:10.000
Florida’s worst accident ever.

00:50:10.000 –> 00:50:14.000
Uh, Coral Gables, as you get into the Miami area.

00:50:14.000 –> 00:50:20.000
is… is a… one of the plan communities, dates from the 1920s, very beautiful.

00:50:20.000 –> 00:50:27.000
Vizkaya is now a museum. The industrialist Charles Deering owned it.

00:50:27.000 –> 00:50:30.000
And we come into Little Havana.

00:50:30.000 –> 00:50:36.000
Um, 8th Street, um, 41 there is Calle Ocho.

00:50:36.000 –> 00:50:47.000
Little Havana has lots of tourists, it has a Cuban emigre community, it has significant architecture, the ball and chain is a really great nightclub there.

00:50:47.000 –> 00:50:53.000
We get to the Brickell neighborhood, which is the official end of the road.

00:50:53.000 –> 00:50:58.000
However, from 1952 to 1999,

00:50:58.000 –> 00:51:01.000
The road ended in Miami Beach.

00:51:01.000 –> 00:51:05.000
And that’s where I sought to end the road in this book.

00:51:05.000 –> 00:51:14.000
Carl Graham Fisher was Mr. Miami Beach. He established the Indianapolis 500. He was the brainchild of the Dixie Highway, um,

00:51:14.000 –> 00:51:17.000
Um, brainchild of US-40,

00:51:17.000 –> 00:51:23.000
He was an ardent anti-Semite, a racist. He divorced his wife.

00:51:23.000 –> 00:51:28.000
died of cirrhosis of the liver, a very complicated character.

00:51:28.000 –> 00:51:39.000
Right at… right at the end, this… this unofficial end of 41 is South Beach, and these beautiful Art Deco hotels that are along it.

00:51:39.000 –> 00:51:44.000
And that’s where, I think, Highway 41 should end.

00:51:44.000 –> 00:51:52.000
By the by, the Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway is now a part of its name there. There is no signage.

00:51:52.000 –> 00:51:56.000
Um, it’s an American journey, though. This is an old map.

00:51:56.000 –> 00:52:00.000
when it was called the Boulevard of America,

00:52:00.000 –> 00:52:05.000
You learn a lot, you learn that this is an immensely complex country.

00:52:05.000 –> 00:52:07.000
And you see old and new.

00:52:07.000 –> 00:52:12.000
The future is already here, but the past refuses to die

00:52:12.000 –> 00:52:18.000
come to US-41 to see the past, the present, and possibly the future.

00:52:18.000 –> 00:52:20.000
Thank you so much.

00:52:20.000 –> 00:52:21.000
Okay

00:52:21.000 –> 00:52:22.000
This is a website that I have.

00:52:22.000 –> 00:52:34.000
Um, where you can, um, get the book. You can type in the book. It’s now available through, um, Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Walmart and so forth, okay?

00:52:34.000 –> 00:52:38.000
So, I will stop sharing.

00:52:38.000 –> 00:52:53.000
Okay, thank you so much, Chris. That was a fascinating tour of right from the very top of the U.S. to the very bottom, and everything in between. That was such an interesting journey.

00:52:53.000 –> 00:52:58.000
We have some questions here, so let me just read them out to you.

00:52:58.000 –> 00:53:13.000
And one of the first question is from David Jennings. So he says, I think he’s referring to the Robert or to the monument to the Confederate president. And he says, what year was it built as compared to the Washington Monument

00:53:13.000 –> 00:53:16.000
1924.

00:53:16.000 –> 00:53:17.000
The, um…

00:53:17.000 –> 00:53:19.000
Okay. And Washington was probably much earlier than that, I would say.

00:53:19.000 –> 00:53:22.000
Yes, yes it was. Yes, it was.

00:53:22.000 –> 00:53:30.000
Okay. And then Daniel Ingold says, and I was wondering this myself when you mentioned, he says, is the monkey song last train to Clarksville written about Clarksville, Tennessee?

00:53:30.000 –> 00:53:39.000
Yes, it is. Very, very good, very good. Um, there’s a Jimi Hendrix statue in Clarksville, because Jimi Hendrix, uh,

00:53:39.000 –> 00:53:44.000
The Fort Campbell, which is a huge military base, is right next to Clarksville.

00:53:44.000 –> 00:53:54.000
And, um, and so the last train to Clarksville is really about, um, somebody who is, is going to Clarksville to, to go to the Army.

00:53:54.000 –> 00:53:58.000
it’s kind of a sad song when you really listen to it.

00:53:58.000 –> 00:54:02.000
Yeah, yeah, that’s crazy. I know that song. I know it well.

00:54:02.000 –> 00:54:09.000
It’s another interesting… this is a comment from David Jennings. He says, we are naming part of 41 for Dickie Betts in Saratoga County

00:54:09.000 –> 00:54:12.000
Yes, yes!

00:54:12.000 –> 00:54:14.000
And Vicki Vetz wrote Ramblin’ Man

00:54:14.000 –> 00:54:15.000
Yes, yes, very good.

00:54:15.000 –> 00:54:16.000
Which I know that song as well, actually

00:54:16.000 –> 00:54:24.000
Um, so… so the Dickey Betts Highway, uh, Dickie Betts lived in Osprey, which was just to the south of Sarasota.

00:54:24.000 –> 00:54:31.000
And, um, of course, in a burst of, you know, whatever, they wanted to name it after one of their, um,

00:54:31.000 –> 00:54:36.000
One of their big, you know, big, big names.

00:54:36.000 –> 00:54:46.000
He will always be associated, though, with naked, and with the Allman Brothers band there, and he wrote Ramblin’ Man, which is such a terrific song.

00:54:46.000 –> 00:54:55.000
Yeah. Now, you know, it’s very interesting. We have a comment from Janice Rohn. She says went to some of these sites, including

00:54:55.000 –> 00:55:05.000
Wiki-watchi and Nashville, and I was thinking the same thing, that 41, although it doesn’t have the cachet of Route 66 and all the rest of it

00:55:05.000 –> 00:55:21.000
It’s actually SCA paradise because there’s been three SCA conferences held along that route. We went to Nashville two years ago, and which I loved that conference, it was great. When you showed the picture of the bar strip downtown

00:55:21.000 –> 00:55:34.000
That brought by a lot of memories and also the Parthenon, we went there as well on that trip. And then quite a while ago, we were in Florida, in Sarasota, and Saratoga, whatever that the city is

00:55:34.000 –> 00:55:36.000
Sarasota, yeah.

00:55:36.000 –> 00:55:53.000
Saratoga and Tampa, and that was fascinating. But we also, I guess, maybe 10 years ago now, at least, were in Wisconsin. We went to Milwaukee and area… the conference was centered in Wisconsin, Dallas, but we went to places along Route 4

00:55:53.000 –> 00:55:56.000
So it’s quite, quite an interesting route

00:55:56.000 –> 00:56:02.000
It is, it is, and I think, again, and it’s just as some of the comments, there’s so much to see.

00:56:02.000 –> 00:56:10.000
People… many people have grown up along the road, and if you are of a certain age, you traveled down this road,

00:56:10.000 –> 00:56:15.000
to, um… to all kinds of places, um, to Florida, or

00:56:15.000 –> 00:56:27.000
from Florida on north. Um, yes, I see the comment. Andersonville is in my book. I have that as a, as a, as a side trip that people should take.

00:56:27.000 –> 00:56:33.000
Um, there’s… there’s all kinds of jumping-off points, there’s all kinds of things to see,

00:56:33.000 –> 00:56:39.000
Yes, it’s different from Route 66 in that it is… is it iconic?

00:56:39.000 –> 00:56:42.000
Ah, not in the same way.

00:56:42.000 –> 00:56:47.000
Because it’s still a viable road. It still is a working road.

00:56:47.000 –> 00:56:57.000
There’s still things that are ongoing, and changes occur. And I think you see all of that, and that’s what I liked about it.

00:56:57.000 –> 00:57:17.000
Yeah, no, you’re absolutely right. Well, you know, Chris, we’re right on time. There’s a whole bunch of comments in the chat, which I will… well, you can see them right now, but I’ll send it to you as well. And people love your presentation and brought back a lot of memories for them. In fact, people that had been born and grown up along that highway. So

00:57:17.000 –> 00:57:31.000
But you’ll see there, the audience really appreciated your presentation tonight. And I would just like to take a minute now before we go to just

00:57:31.000 –> 00:57:37.000
remind everybody about next week, or next month, I should say, when on July

00:57:37.000 –> 00:57:52.000
Sorry, Wednesday, July the 15th, at our usual time, sisters Miriam and Victoria Caldwell will transport us right back into time and space as they read some of the best diary entries, tell stories and share photos, bringing to light one of

00:57:52.000 –> 00:58:10.000
The unique stories on the history of Clifton’s and about one camera girl who blazed her own path to become the star of your souvenir photo. Now, SCA members will be receiving the relevant details and a registration link for the July talk by email

00:58:10.000 –> 00:58:13.000
And now this can register through the SCA website directly

00:58:13.000 –> 00:58:27.000
I’d like to thank everyone who joined us tonight for for spending some time with us. Expect an email shortly if you’re not already a member, inviting you to join the and enjoy all the benefits of membership.

00:58:27.000 –> 00:58:31.000
And I’d like to remind everyone, of course, that the

00:58:31.000 –> 00:58:46.000
Recording of this, of tonight’s presentation will be available on the SCA’s website probably tomorrow morning. So if you have friends and colleagues that missed it, tonight, they can watch it anytime, and of course, there’s never any charge

00:58:46.000 –> 00:58:48.000
Any last words for us, Chris, before we go?

00:58:48.000 –> 00:58:56.000
No, except that I am… I’m real heartened by all the comments I’m seeing. Thanks to all of you.

00:58:56.000 –> 00:59:04.000
It’s… it was a… it was a labor of love on my part to do. It was lots of fun to, uh, to talk with you all.

00:59:04.000 –> 00:59:15.000
And I’m really glad.

00:59:15.000 –> 00:59:16.000
Okay.

00:59:16.000 –> 00:59:20.000
Okay, well, with most parting comments, thank you again for a lovely presentation, and I hope you sell lots of books, and I look forward to seeing everybody

00:59:20.000 –> 00:59:25.000
Next month, and with that, I will say good night