Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Kosciusko County LincolnHwy Committee
The Lincoln Highway - "Main Street Across America"
In 1912, there were almost no good roads to speak of in the United States. The relatively few miles of improved road were only around towns and cities. A road was "improved" if it was graded; one was lucky to have gravel or brick.
Most of the 2.5 million miles of roads were just dirt: bumpy and dusty in dry weather, impassable in wet weather. Worse yet, the roads didn't really lead anywhere. They spread out aimlessly from the center of a settlement. To get from one settlement to another, it was much easier to take the train.
Carl G. Fisher recognized this situation and an idea started to take hold. Fisher was a man of ideas. His Indianapolis Motor Speedway was a success, especially after he paved it with brick and started the Indianapolis 500, and he would later turn a swamp into one of the greatest resorts: Miami Beach, Fla.
In 1912, he dreamed of another grand idea: a highway spanning the continent from coast to coast.
He called his idea the Coast-to-Coast Rock Highway. The gravel road would cost about $10 million, a low price even in 1912. Communities along the route would provide the equipment and in return would receive free materials and a place along America's first transcontinental highway. The highway would be finished in time for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition and would run from the exposition's host, San Francisco, to New York City.
To fund this scheme, he asked for cash donations from auto manufacturers and accessory companies of 1 percent of their revenues. The public could become members of the highway organization for $5.
On Sept. 1, 1912, at a dinner party for automobile manufacturers at the Deutsches Haus in Indianapolis, Fisher, president of the Prest-O-Lite Co., unveiled his plan for a highway spanning the country.
"A road across the United States! Let's build it before we're too old to enjoy it!" Fisher urged the auto executives. He told them the cost and sought pledges from the auto officials at the dinner. Just 30 minutes after his talk, Fisher received $300,000 from Frank A. Seiberling of the Goodyear Co., without even checking with his board of directors.
A few months after the Indianapolis dinner, Fisher received a letter from Henry Joy, Packard Motor Co. president, pledging $150,000 for the proposed roadway. Joy, a leading force behind getting the coast-to-coast highway built, also suggested that the road be named for Abraham Lincoln. He wrote Fisher urging him to write a letter of protest to Congress, which was considering spending $1.7 million on a marble memorial to Lincoln.
Joy thought a good road across the country would be a better tribute to the president. The name "Lincoln" captured Fisher's fancy; he realized it would give great patriotic appeal to the highway. Fisher asked Joy if he wanted to be involved directly with the highway project. Although hesitant at first, Joy soon wholeheartedly supported the project and became the primary spokesman for the highway.
On July 1, 1913, the association decided to call the coast-to-coast highway the Lincoln Highway, and it was officially incorporated as the Lincoln Highway Association. The Association's goal was to "procure the establishment of a continuous improved highway from the Atlantic to the Pacific, open to lawful traffic of all description without toll charges: such highway to be known in memory of Abraham Lincoln, as 'The Lincoln Highway.'"
Henry Joy was elected as president. Carl Fisher, who was elected vice president, was not present. He had departed with the Indiana Automobile Manufacturers Association on a trip to the West Coast. The "Hoosier Tour" was intended, in part, to explore possible routes for the Lincoln Highway.
