 William Least Heat-Moon (2008) | |
| Author | William Least Heat-Moon |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Travel/Biography |
| Publisher | Fawcett Crest |
Publication date | 1982 |
| Pages | 415 |
| ISBN | 0-449-21109-6 |
| OCLC | 257104961 |
Blue Highways is an autobiographical travel book, published in 1982, by William Least Heat-Moon, born William Trogdon.
In 1978, after separating from his wife and losing his job as a teacher, Heat-Moon, 38 at the time, took an extended road trip in a circular route around the United States, sticking to only the "Blue Highways". He had coined the term to refer to small, forgotten, out-of-the-way roads connecting rural America (which were drawn in blue on the old style Rand McNally road atlas).
He outfitted his van with a bunk, a camping stove, a portable toilet and a copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and John Neihardt's Black Elk Speaks . Referring to the Native American resurrection ritual, he named the van "Ghost Dancing", and embarked on a three-month soul-searching tour of the United States, wandering from small town to small town, stopping often at towns with interesting names. The book chronicles the 13,000-mile journey and the people he meets along the way, as he steers clear of cities and interstates, avoiding fast food and exploring local American culture.
Stories that arose from Least Heat-Moon's research as well as historical facts are included about each area visited, as well as conversations with characters such as a Seventh-day Adventist evangelist hitchhiker, a teenage runaway, a boat builder, a monk, an Appalachian log cabin restorer, a rural Nevada prostitute, fishermen, a Hopi Native American medical student, owners of Western saloons and remote country stores, a maple syrup farmer, and Chesapeake Bay island dwellers.
Blue Highways was on the New York Times bestseller list for 42 weeks in 1982–83. Robert Penn Warren called the book "a masterpiece," writing that "[Least Heat-Moon] makes America seem new, in a very special way, and its people new." [1]
The Lincoln Highway is one of the first transcontinental highways in the United States and one of the first highways designed expressly for automobiles. Conceived in 1912 by Indiana entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, and formally dedicated October 31, 1913, the Lincoln Highway runs coast-to-coast from Times Square in New York City west to Lincoln Park in San Francisco. The full route originally ran through 13 states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California. In 1915, the "Colorado Loop" was removed, and in 1928, a realignment routed the Lincoln Highway through the northern tip of West Virginia. Thus, there are 14 states, 128 counties, and more than 700 cities, towns, and villages through which the highway passed at some time in its history.
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William Least Heat-Moon is an American travel writer and historian of English, Irish, and alleged Osage ancestry. He is the author of several books which chronicle unusual journeys through the United States, including cross-country trips by boat and, in his best known work, about his journey in a 1975 Ford Econoline van.
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Blue Highway may refer to:
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PrairyErth: is a 1991 book about Chase County, Kansas by American author William Least Heat-Moon. The author termed it a deep map, popularizing that term for an intensive look at a particular place that included discussion of geography, history, and ecology. The book featured in the bestsellers list of both Publishers Weekly and The New York Times.
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