The Last American Highway

The Last American Highway PDF

Author: Stew Magnuson

Publisher:

Published: 2014-02

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 9780985299620

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Descending 1,885 miles straight down the center of the United States from Westhope, North Dakota, to Brownsville, Texas, is U.S. 83, one of the oldest and longest of the federal highways that hasn't been replaced by an Interstate. Award-winning author Stew Magnuson takes readers on a trip down the road and through the history of the Northern Great Plains. The famous and the forgotten are found in stories he discovers in the Dakotas. Explorers Pierre de la Verendrye, Lewis & Clark, Jedediah Smith, are all encountered along with Chief Spotted Tail of the Brule Lakotas, TV sensation Lawrence Welk and rodeo superstar Casey Tibbs. The murderers, settlers, ballplayers and rail barons from yesteryear meet today's truckers, oil rig workers and ghost towns inhabitants as Magnuson launches his own Voyage of Discovery in a beat-up 1999 Mazda Protege. Published on the 125th anniversary of the year North Dakota and South Dakota became states, The Last American Highway: A Journey Through Time Down U.S. Route 83: The Dakotas, is a love poem to the natural beauty of the prairie and the fascinating people-both past and present-found along the road.

The Last American Highway

The Last American Highway PDF

Author: Stew Magnuson

Publisher:

Published: 2017-03-24

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 9780985299637

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Descending 897 miles from the top of the Texas Panhandle to the state's southernmost point at Brownsville is U.S. 83, one of the longest federal highways that hasn't been replaced by an Interstate. Award-winning author Stew Magnuson takes readers on a trip through the Lone Star State's sparsely populated ranchlands, its scenic Hill Country and the historically rich Lower Rio Grande Valley. "Every town has a story to tell," says Magnuson. A massacre in Menard marked the beginning of the end for the Spanish Empire in America. Wellington is where the notorious criminals Bonnie and Clyde sent their car careening into the Red River. On a ranch just east of Brownsville, Ranger "Rip" Ford led the charge at the final battle of the Civil War. Magnuson uncovers the stories of the famous, the infamous and the forgotten as he explores a road like no other in America. "From the top of the Texas Panhandle through Red River country, from rolling farm and ranchlands to the Mexican border, Stew Magnuson shares a journey that is as much personal as historical. His tales of roads and rails, struggles epic and small, heroes and criminals and everyday folks past and present, paint a portrait that compels us to gas up the car and go, and find these places for ourselves." - Barbara Brannon Executive director of the Texas Plains Trail Region

The Last American Highway

The Last American Highway PDF

Author: Stew Magnuson

Publisher:

Published: 2017-03-24

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13: 9780985299637

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Descending 897 miles from the top of the Texas Panhandle to the state's southernmost point at Brownsville is U.S. 83, one of the longest federal highways that hasn't been replaced by an Interstate. Award-winning author Stew Magnuson takes readers on a trip through the Lone Star State's sparsely populated ranchlands, its scenic Hill Country and the historically rich Lower Rio Grande Valley. "Every town has a story to tell," says Magnuson. A massacre in Menard marked the beginning of the end for the Spanish Empire in America. Wellington is where the notorious criminals Bonnie and Clyde sent their car careening into the Red River. On a ranch just east of Brownsville, Ranger "Rip" Ford led the charge at the final battle of the Civil War. Magnuson uncovers the stories of the famous, the infamous and the forgotten as he explores a road like no other in America. "From the top of the Texas Panhandle through Red River country, from rolling farm and ranchlands to the Mexican border, Stew Magnuson shares a journey that is as much personal as historical. His tales of roads and rails, struggles epic and small, heroes and criminals and everyday folks past and present, paint a portrait that compels us to gas up the car and go, and find these places for ourselves." - Barbara Brannon Executive director of the Texas Plains Trail Region

The Last American Highway: a Journey Through Time Down U. S Route 83

The Last American Highway: a Journey Through Time Down U. S Route 83 PDF

Author: Stew Magnuson

Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform

Published: 2015-01-30

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781505586497

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Descending 1,885 miles straight down the center of the United States from Westhope, North Dakota, to Brownsville, Texas, is U.S. 83, one of the oldest and longest of the federal highways that hasn't been replaced by an Interstate. Award-winning author Stew Magnuson takes readers on a trip through the Nebraska Sand Hills, the Smoky River Valley in Kansas and the singular Oklahoma Panhandle. Along the route are the stories of the famous, the infamous, and the forgotten. Buffalo Bill Cody hunted these lands, but what about Buffalo Jones, who set out to save the American bison from extinction? This is where the ruthless, but now largely forgotten bank robbers, the Fleagles committed their most heinous crime; where the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia met George Armstrong Custer and Pussy Cat Nell dispatched the corrupt Sheriff "Brushy" Bush with a shotgun blast. What ties together President Eisenhower, the architect Frank Lloyd Wright and author Truman Capote? Highway 83, of course.

Interstate 69

Interstate 69 PDF

Author: Matt Dellinger

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2010-08-24

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 9781439175736

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Interstate 69 is an enlightening journey through the heart of America. With this epic tale of one vast and controversial road project, Matt Dellinger brings to life the country’s complex political, social, and economic landscape. The 1,400-mile extension of I-69 south from Indianapolis, if completed, will connect Canada to Mexico through Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. This so-called NAFTA highway has been in development for two decades, and while segments are under construction today, others may never be built. Eagerly anticipated by many as an economic godsend, I-69 has also been opposed by environmentalists, farmers, ranchers, anarchists, and others who question both the wisdom of building more highways and the merits of globalization. Part history, part travelogue, Interstate 69 reveals the surprising story of how this extraordinary undertaking began, introduces us to the array of individuals who have worked tirelessly for years to build the road—or to stop it—and guides us through the many places the highway would transform forever: from sprawling cities like Indianapolis, Houston, and Memphis to the small rural towns of the Midwestern rust belt, the Mississippi Delta, and South Texas. In an era when bridges fall, levies fail, and states lease their toll roads to foreign-owned corporations, Americans are realizing the central importance of infrastructure, how it affects our standard of living and quality of life and how it determines which places prosper and which places fade. This book illustrates vividly that the story of transportation is indeed the story of America—and that story continues. Matt Dellinger connects these dots with an absorbingly human, on-the-ground examination of our country’s struggle with development. Interstate 69 captures the hopes, dreams, and fears surrounding what we build and what we leave behind.

The Longest Line on the Map

The Longest Line on the Map PDF

Author: Eric Rutkow

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2019-01-08

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 150110392X

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From the award-winning author of American Canopy, a dazzling account of the world’s longest road, the Pan-American Highway, and the epic quest to link North and South America, a dramatic story of commerce, technology, politics, and the divergent fates of the Americas in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Pan-American Highway, monument to a century’s worth of diplomacy and investment, education and engineering, scandal and sweat, is the longest road in the world, passable everywhere save the mythic Darien Gap that straddles Panama and Colombia. The highway’s history, however, has long remained a mystery, a story scattered among government archives, private papers, and fading memories. In contrast to the Panama Canal and its vast literature, the Pan-American Highway—the United States’ other great twentieth-century hemispheric infrastructure project—has become an orphan of the past, effectively erased from the story of the “American Century.” The Longest Line on the Map uncovers this incredible tale for the first time and weaves it into a tapestry that fascinates, informs, and delights. Rutkow’s narrative forces the reader to take seriously the question: Why couldn’t the Americas have become a single region that “is” and not two near irreconcilable halves that “are”? Whether you’re fascinated by the history of the Americas, or you’ve dreamed of driving around the globe, or you simply love world records and the stories behind them, The Longest Line on the Map is a riveting narrative, a lost epic of hemispheric scale.

Highway 50

Highway 50 PDF

Author: Jim Lilliefors

Publisher: James Lilliefors

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 9781555910730

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Documents the author's trip along Highway 50 from Ocean City, Maryland to Sacramento, California.

The Lincoln Highway

The Lincoln Highway PDF

Author: Amor Towles

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2023-03-21

Total Pages: 593

ISBN-13: 0735222363

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER More than ONE MILLION copies sold A TODAY Show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick A New York Times Notable Book, and Chosen by Oprah Daily, Time, NPR, The Washington Post, Bill Gates and Barack Obama as a Best Book of the Year “Wise and wildly entertaining . . . permeated with light, wit, youth.” —The New York Times Book Review “A classic that we will read for years to come.” —Jenna Bush Hager, Read with Jenna book club “Fantastic. Set in 1954, Towles uses the story of two brothers to show that our personal journeys are never as linear or predictable as we might hope.” —Bill Gates “A real joyride . . . elegantly constructed and compulsively readable.” —NPR The bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow and Rules of Civility and master of absorbing, sophisticated fiction returns with a stylish and propulsive novel set in 1950s America In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served fifteen months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett's intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California where they can start their lives anew. But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm have hidden themselves in the trunk of the warden's car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett's future, one that will take them all on a fateful journey in the opposite direction—to the City of New York. Spanning just ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles's third novel will satisfy fans of his multi-layered literary styling while providing them an array of new and richly imagined settings, characters, and themes. “Once again, I was wowed by Towles’s writing—especially because The Lincoln Highway is so different from A Gentleman in Moscow in terms of setting, plot, and themes. Towles is not a one-trick pony. Like all the best storytellers, he has range. He takes inspiration from famous hero’s journeys, including The Iliad, The Odyssey, Hamlet, Huckleberry Finn, and Of Mice and Men. He seems to be saying that our personal journeys are never as linear or predictable as an interstate highway. But, he suggests, when something (or someone) tries to steer us off course, it is possible to take the wheel.” – Bill Gates