Historic Preservation
Through
his own sweat and perseverance, Frank has become very
knowledgeable and skilled in the historic preservation
field. For the past thirty years, he has studied the
history and culture of old highways, specifically
U.S. Route 40. With a sizable collection of
ephemera relating to perhaps the grandest of all of
the numbered transcontinental highways (over 5,000
postcards, brochures, posters, decals, matchbooks,
etc.), he was able to assist preservation consultants
such as Gray & Pape (Cincinnati) and HRG (Washington,
DC) in the preparation and application for Ohio section
of the National Road's designation as a National Scenic
Byway.
Frank
is also an expert in the field of scriptolithology
(a term he coined to describe the study of milestones).
He has recorded the locations of the 700 milestones
that stand (or once stood) on the National Road between
Baltimore and Indianapolis. (About 30% of the stones
remain.) He has noted the exact location of each milestone
using GPS technology, recorded their locations on
USGS maps, taken photographs and recorded all of this
information in a milestone database.
Frank's
other areas of specialty include diners, petrolinia
and other highways (Lincoln Highway, Dixie Highway,
U.S. numbered highways).
Not
one to let his collection of information collect dust,
he launched the Route
40 web site in 1996. To date, the site
has logged about 150,000 visitors. In addition, Frank
is an occasional writer, penning articles on old highways
for trade publications. Currently, he is completing
a 50-year update of George Stewart's U.S. 40,
a collection of maps detailing the various alignments
of Route 40, and a detailed accounting of Jack Kerouac's
travels from his On the Road era.
Frank
is also the founder and moderator of the Route 40
online community at Yahoo!Groups. He also serves
on the board of the Society for Commercial Archaeology
(www.sca-roadside.org).
Frank Brusca
