Route 30 Roadside Giant sprouts as tourism lure
This roadside giant went up at Shatzer’s Fruit Market in Franklin County’s Hamilton Township this week. It’s an example of roadside architecture, evident for years along the Lincoln Highway and Route 30, to attract attention to stops for motorists. Background posts: Mahlon Haines got in trouble at Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge and Old Lincoln Highway pulled ‘Americans out of the mud’ and Landmark Modernaire Motel built in Lincoln Highway’s heyday.
A modern-day Roadside Giant has been birthed along Route 30 near Chambersburg.
Students at the Franklin County Career and Technology Center assembled an super-sized replica of a 1921 Selden apple truck, complete with crates of produce on the bed, according to the Chambersburg Public Opinion.
It’s dimensions?
Eleven feet tall and 26 feet long.
Such oversized structures have been part of old-road architecture for years.
York County’s Shoe House, near both Route 30 and the old Lincoln Highway, is a York/Adams example.
This tourist attractions are fighting to stay standing… .
The landmark ship hotel between Bedford and Somerset on the Lincoln Highway burned down earlier this decade.
The Public Opinion pointed out that the two-story Coffee Pot in Bedford County has been moved and restored.
Even the Shoe House has appeared to struggle in the past two decades passing through various owners.
But the apple truck is an example of next-generation Roadside Giant.
A quarter, Packard, antique bicycle and 1940s gas pump are others in the Pittsburgh region.
“Roadside Giants of the Lincoln Highway have always been part of the highway’s kitsch, and they still are,” said Olga Herbert, executive director of Lincoln Highway Heritage tol the Public Opinion. “Just like Bedford’s Coffee Pot or York’s Shoe House, these Roadside Giants that students designed, fabricated and installed will be a draw for not only heritage tourists, but everyone passing by.”
Lincoln Highway Heritage and other tourism-promotion groups are doing good work in preserving and promoting the Lincoln Highway.
Their efforts stop at the York/Adams County line leaving the stretch of Route 30/462 from east of Abbottstown to the Susquehanna River underpromoted.
There’s lots of old Lincoln Highway stuff in York County to promote and preserve, including the bridges at Wrightsville.
York County political and tourism promotion officials are missing an opportunity.
– For additional information on the Lincoln Highway, visit highway expert Brian Butko’s Lincoln Highway News site.
Photo courtesy of Chambersburg Public Opinion.
