Lincoln Highway, Route 66, and the Pan Am Hwy

The first cross country designated continental road was the Lincoln Highway--starting on the east coast at 42nd Street in Manhattan. It crossed the Hudson River and became Route 27 in New Jersey, going right through the center of my home town, New Brunswick, on its way to Pennsylvania and the west. I was reminded of this bit of history by a recent Public Service TV Special named the "Lincoln Highway". A more well known road was Route 66--starting in Chicago and winding through the southwest, including the Texas panhandle, and ending in San Diego. Parts of Route 66 still exist, especially in New Mexico, and the road was featured in the movie "Cars".

Laredo can claim another iconic, though less well known, highway--the "Pan American". In these days, starting as IH35 at the Canadian border, and continuing south through Mexico and down to the tip of Chile. Vintage 50's cars have had annual road rallies from mid Mexico to Nuevo Laredo (before the unfortunate continuing violence shut the race down). On the Laredo side, the real life version of Burt Reynold's fictional movie race "Cannonball Run"--stopped to do laps at what was the Uniroyal track.

The Pan American Highway once ran down San Bernardo--Laredo's original "strip". Perhaps we will see a positive resurgent of this icon as a tourist destination with its growing Mexican curio shops. In any event, we are still defined as a city by the highway of "international trade".