By Gary Ogle
gogle@wbcowqel.com
There were lots of special visitors in Bucyrus Wednesday morning, but the one garnering the most attention had a familiar look about him. He was tall, with a long face made longer by his beard, an elegant but old-fashioned suit topped off with a stove-pipe hat.
Abraham Lincoln, in the person of Lincoln presenter Gerald Payn, was at the Washington Square mural for photos and to welcome the east-to-west portion of the Lincoln Highway Centennial Celebration. The other visitors hailed from faraway places as well. Places like Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey to name just a few.
“This is the 100th anniversary of the first transcontinental road in the United States,” said John Peters of The Villages in Florida. Peters is originally from Jackson, Ohio, a town he likened to Bucyrus and was with the Lincoln Highway Association.
Payn explained two cross country Lincoln Highway tours were simultaneously starting out – one traveling east to west originating in New York and the other from west to east beginning in San Francisco. Those making the tours are doing so in classic and historic automobiles and will meet in Kearney, Neberaska, on Sunday. On Monday they will combine for a large parade through that community.
Mr. Lincoln, aka Payn, shares his thoughts about the Lincoln Highway and Bucyrus. “It definitely is an honor and I certainly never dreamed something like this would ever happen,” Payn said in his best Lincoln-like voice and demeanor. “All the way from New York city to San Francisco I’ve been told. All these beautiful villages that the highway goes through, I’m so pleased to be able to be here on this day.”
Payn is a retired school teacher and ironically would have most likely come to Bucyrus on the Lincoln Highway since he lives in Wooster.
The tour had been in Mansfield on Tuesday and was next headed to Upper Sandusky yet Wednesday on its way to Nebraska.