Roads, more than rail lines or the airways, are at the heart of travel. I am going to devote a few posts to historic roads, what we can learn from them and why we should save them. This is the last post in an eight-part series.
If astigmatism had not afflicted Carl Fisher (1874-1939), he might have stayed in school and grown to adulthood in a more predictable manner. But it was not to be. A lifelong sufferer, Fisher found school difficult and tedious.
Carl left school when he was about 12 years old. That was the beginning of a career that was witness to a series of colorful and flamboyant accomplishments.
Among them were the building of a multi-million dollar fortune in the auto headlight business, the founding of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the championing of the nation’s first transcontinental highway.
The first improved road across the United States built specifically with the automobile in mind, the Lincoln Highway originally stretched from New York’s Times Square to San Francisco.
The route passed through 13 states in the process. They were: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California.
In 1915, a section in Colorado was removed. An adjustment a few years later rerouted the highway through a northern section of West Virginia. In total, the Lincoln Highway traversed sections of 14 states and passed through more than 700 cities, towns and villages through at some time during its history.
In 1913 the first official mileage for the entire Lincoln Highway was listed as 3,389 miles. But due to numerous adjustments and realignments, the road was listed as about 250 miles shorter a dozen years later.
The Lincoln Highway was dedicated on October 31, 1913, and the route was the nation’s first memorial to President Abraham Lincoln. Its dedication came almost a full decade before the unveiling of Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C. in 1922.
The Lincoln Highway did much to knit the nation together, ushering in prosperity and visibility to hundreds of communities along its route. Inspired by the Good Roads Movement, the Highway, in turn, planted the seeds of the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956.
President Eisenhower was the champion of the Interstate movement, and he was likely influenced by his journey across the Lincoln Highway in 1919 as part of an Army convoy. According to research by James Lin the approximate route of the Lincoln Highway is as follows:
At the Lincoln Highway Association website, you can learn more about this remarkable early highway, and get access to state maps and street maps showing the route of the original Lincoln Highway.
You can also explore highlights of the highway along its entire route and keep up to date via its “Lincoln Highway News and Events.” There are also links to state chapters of the Lincoln Highway Association and info on the annual Lincoln Highway National Conference, which was held in 2009 in South Bend, Indiana.
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