The Lincoln Highway and Its Changing Routes in Utah By JESSE G. PETERSEN
T
he Lincoln Highway, the first automobile highway to cross the entire width of the United States, was born from what must have been seen as an almost desperate need to improve the nation's roads. D u r i n g the first two decades of the twentieth century, rapidly changing m a n u f a c t u r i n g m e t h o d s had made the a u t o m o b i l e available to an increasing number of Americans. People from almost all walks of life were p u r c h a s i n g a u t o m o b i l e s as fast as they c o u l d be produced. But drivers soon discovered that the condition of the roads was greatly hampering their ability to travel. Roads that had been adequate for wagons, coaches, and carriages more often than not proved to be difficult or impossible for automobiles. A 1935 history of the Lincoln Highway summarized the situation during these early days of automobile travel: At that time there were almost no roads, as roads are known today in the United States. There was no system of connecting roads covering even so [much] as a state, probably none which even covered a county.... There had grown two million miles of unrelated, unconnected roads, broken into thousands of star-like independent groups, each railroad station or market town the center of a star. As these carried little traffic, they were left practically unimproved. At their best, they were graded and graveled or macadamized; at Automobile Club of Southern their worst they were little, if any, better than the California setting a guidepost on backwoods byways of Colonial times. 1
This was a situation that simply had to be changed. T h e public looked to the government to do something, but the government was slow t o r e s p o n d . As a result of t h e
the Lincoln Highway on July 10, 1918. Photo is of 900 East 300 South, Salt Lake City,
looking
west.
Jesse Petersen is the retired chief of police for Tooele City. He became a charter member of the Utah Chapter of the Lincoln Highway Association in 1993 and has served as chapter president. Currently he is president of the National Lincoln Highway Association and is pursuing research on the highway and other early transportation routes. 1 Lincoln Highway Association (LHA), The Lincoln Highway: The Story of a Crusade that Made Transportation History (NewYork: Dodd-Mead, 1935; reprint Sacramento: Pleiades Press, 1995), 3.
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