Jim Hinckley’s Blog
The Glory of Eccentricity
Milton O. Reeves was not a man without imagination. He was a modestly successful businessman. He was a visionary of sorts. He was also a man with steadfast determination not afraid of ridicule or derision. This is a particularly desirable quality if you intend to...
Welcome To My Neighborhood
It was mid summer 1966 when we followed the flow of traffic on Route 66 into Kingman, Arizona. Even though I was just a kid, I was no stranger to travel. My folks liked to tease that my toilet training had taken place along the highway and in service station rest...
Seamless
A history teacher pushes the student to memorize facts and dates. In the process they often instill a life long perception that history is as dead and boring as an insurance seminar about actuary tables. A historian provides relevance. They illustrate how the events...
Visionary or Eccentric?
The line between visionary and eccentric is often one that overlaps. Among the many things that make the formative years of the American automobile industry fascinating are manifestations that blur that line. On the visionary side of that line would be the optional...
Well, That Was Interesting
Few things in life serve as milestones to mark the passing of time better than a visit to the old homestead of my youth. The house is now empty. Its windows broken and the door is standing wide with sand dunes spread across the floor. The roof on the cavernous garage...
Inspiration, Road Trips & Interesting Discoveries
On May 2, 1915, 26-year-old Effie Hotchkiss set off from her home in Brooklyn, New York, for the Panama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, with her, quote, "rotund" 52-year-old mother, Avis, in the side car. For two women to drive a car on such an adventure would...
The Mine Field
I was vaguely aware of the horrendous 1917 race riot in East St. Louis, Missouri before commencing with research for the book Murder and Mayhem on the Main Street of Route 66: Tales from Bloody 66. But as I studied the incident one question began to dominate my...
In The Shadows
It was a very odd story. On the evening of October 4, 1919, about twenty-five miles west of Seligman behind a small hill along the National Old Trails Road, a shepherd tending a flock made a startling discovery: the smoldering body of a man. Yavapai County sheriff...
Bathtubs, Birdcages & Chevrolet
A key to success is an awareness of shortcomings. We all have an Achilles heel. For me there is a daily struggle with distractions. As an example, this afternoon while preparing for the next episode of Coffee With Jim, the live stream program on the Jim Hinckley’s America Facebook page, I was thumbing through a 1929 Rand McNally atlas. As this weeks program with be a virtual tour along U.S. 6, I was looking for information about the highways course in Pennsylvania.
Disasters And Tales of Tragedy
On August 11,1955 a horrendous accident along Route 66 a few miles west of Clines Corner, New Mexico claimed the lives six men. In May 1957 at a highway junction near Cuba, Missouri a two car collision killed five members of a Chicago family. Two weeks prior on Route...
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