Vol. 2, No. 20
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August 15, 2005
Nevada's Online State News Journal
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CRIMINAL DEFENSE |
COPYWRITING
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The Lincoln Highway Was First Transcontinental Interstate
Built with Private Funding, Not Taxes! Runs All The Way Across Nevada
by Johnny Gunn
Congress just approved the federal transportation bill, and the taxpayer price tag for highways and bridges across the country comes to $286.4 billion. Old Carl Fisher would not be impressed. After all, Fisher designed and built the Indianapolis Speedway and created Miami Beach, Florida. But what he should be most famous for is the creation of a coast-to-coast highway stretching from San Francisco to New York City, and at no cost to taxpayers. He wanted to call the first improved intercontinental highway the Coast-to-Coast Rock Highway.
Henry Joy, president of the Packard Motor Car Company in 1912 convinced Fisher to call his highway The Lincoln Highway and the American public seconded the motion. For a very good look at the history of the highway and some of the people responsible for it, go to http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~jlin/lincoln/history.
Back almost 100 years there were few improved roads anywhere in the country. Most were dirt lanes left over from horse and buggy travel and "graded" meant improved. Few were gravel, fewer still brick. Fisher figured a road could be constructed and graded with gravel for about $10 million with communities along the route providing equipment and in return being a stop on the experiment. Money to pay for this? Fisher wanted that to come from automobile manufacturers and parts distributors, with the general public being able to become a "member" for five bucks.
Henry Ford didn't want to participate but Packard's Henry Joy along with Frank Seiberling president of Goodyear Tire Company jumped at the chance. Fisher wanted the road to be on line, so to speak, by 1913 because of the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition that was scheduled for San Francisco. Construction was underway by 1913, but considering the distance, the roadway was years in the making.
(Click on thumbnail image to enlarge)
The Lincoln Highway Association (LHA), will begin erecting highway signs across Nevada in areas where the old road went through. From the Nevada/California state line, the road followed what we know as old Highway 40 through Reno to Fernley, then went to Fallon and across the state using wagon and stage roads and in places, the Pony Express trails. Today's Highway 50 follows the Lincoln Highway in many places.
Along with the history site and LHA site on the Internet, there is a site called http://www.lincolnhighway.com that is very interesting.
On August 19 LHA along with the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) will unveil a commemorative sign on a restored concrete bridge abutment at the Mogul Rest Stop west of Reno. For more on NDOT, go to http://www.nevadadot.com. According to Lincoln Highway Association Nevada State Director Geno Oliver, the structure is one of only two in the country. The other, he said, is in Tama, Iowa.
The LHA held their 13th national conference this June in Ely at the Bristlecone Convention Center. It was in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the completion of the final section of the Lincoln Highway. In 1930 at the completion of the roadway, a grand celebration had been held in Ely, Nevada as well.
It's believed the Lincoln Highway was the first named roadway in the country. Of course, today we have portions of highways that carry names and designations, and there are federal interstate, federal highway, state highway, and county roads all with numbers.
Fisher looked for donations from auto manufacturers and accessory companies of one percent of their revenues with the public buying in at $5. Henry Ford objected because he felt the general public would never fund good roads if private industry did it for them. It's not known if he was thinking creation of federal transportation taxes, or just more money from individuals.
In Reno there is yet one business that has a connection with the old highway, even to having road signs from the Lincoln Highway on its front facade. Called Abby's Highway 40, the bar on what's today East Fourth Street sports Lincoln Highway and Highway 40 road signs, pictures, and memorabilia.
The roads of 1912 were by and large just dirt pathways, dry and dusty in the summer, mud bogs in the winter, and it was rare that a road actually went anywhere. Coming out of a town there might be half a dozen pathways leading off in various directions, usually toward a near-by ranch, or maybe a mine, or to a railhead. Most people traveled by train in those days.
It's been 93 years since Carl Fisher came up with his brilliant idea, and now we zoom across the Silver State at 85 MPH, when no one's looking, and complain about a few pot holes or a little bit of traffic. Want to go back to hand cranking the old Tin Lizzie, or are you satisfied with what has become the Highway Across The Continent?
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