# The Lincoln Highway: America’s first coast-to-coast road > Founded in 1913 between New York and San Francisco, the Lincoln Highway is gone as one road but survives in markers, old alignments and US 30. Source: https://camping-spirit.com/magazine/us-lincoln-highway/ *By CampingSpirit Editors, 2026-08-28* In 1913 an American could not drive from coast to coast on a continuous road. There were local roads, wagon trails and stretches of mud that became impassable in the first rain, and most of the country had no signs at all. The Lincoln Highway, announced that year, was the first attempt to define one route for cars across the continent, and it helped create the idea of the American road trip. The road no longer exists as a single numbered highway, but much of it can still be driven. This article follows its history and what survives, using the Lincoln Highway Association, the Federal Highway Administration and reference works. Where sources give different figures, the range is stated. ## A dinner in Indianapolis The idea is credited to Carl Fisher, an Indiana entrepreneur who built the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. At a dinner in Indianapolis in September 1912 he proposed a coast-to-coast rock highway, to be funded by the car industry and its customers. Henry Joy, president of the Packard Motor Car Company, became a co-founder, and the Lincoln Highway Association was incorporated in July 1913. The route was announced on 14 September 1913, and celebrations along it took place on 31 October 1913. The Lincoln Highway was not the first transcontinental route on paper: the National Old Trails Ocean-to-Ocean Road had held its convention in April 1912. What distinguished it was a single, named line, an association with private funding and a deliberate campaign to improve the surface. It was never fully paved while the association existed, which closed on 31 December 1927. A 1916 motorist’s guide described the trip as something of a sporting proposition and expected it to take 20 to 30 days. ## The route The highway ran from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, a distance usually given as 3,389 miles (5,454 km) at its longest. As the Association counts it today, the main route crosses twelve states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California. Earlier and alternate alignments also touched Colorado, through a loop that was removed after 1915, and the northern tip of West Virginia, added in a 1928 realignment, so some lists show 14 states. ## Concrete markers in 1928 Before it dissolved, the association organised a project to mark the whole road permanently. On 1 September 1928, Boy Scout troops set concrete posts along the route, each carrying the Lincoln Highway emblem, a directional arrow and a bronze medallion with a bust of Abraham Lincoln. Sources give the number as roughly 2,400 to 3,000 posts. Many were lost to road widening, farming and souvenir hunters, but a number survive, and some are preserved by local chapters and museums. ## US 30, Route 66 and the interstate When the federal government introduced the numbered US highway system in 1926, named trails gave way to numbers, and most of the Lincoln Highway from Pennsylvania to Wyoming became US 30. That road ran from Atlantic City to Astoria, Oregon, and its last 30-mile (48 km) section to be paved was completed on 5 November 1935. Route 66, also designated in 1926, took a more southerly line between Chicago and Los Angeles and later became the better-known symbol of the open road, partly through film and song. Later, Interstate 80 largely superseded the Lincoln Highway as the main coast-to-coast corridor. The road survived because the Lincoln Highway Association was re-formed in 1992 to identify and preserve what remained; it now maintains an interactive map of the route and chapters in the states along it. ## Driving what survives In practice the Lincoln Highway today is a patchwork. Sections follow US 30 through small towns, some become county roads and a few are gravel or dirt, particularly in the West. Much of the Nevada alignment is now US 50, often called the Loneliest Road in America. Planning matters more than navigation: use the Association’s interactive map as the baseline, cross-check with a current road atlas or navigation app, and accept detours onto older alignments where the highway has been bypassed. The Association is the best single resource for the journey. It runs state chapters along the route, publishes a journal called The Forum, and offers a Coast-to-Coast Travel Award to people who drive the entire length. Local chapters and museums along the route are likely to know where original markers and old pavement survive,. A short stop at one of these places often tells more about the road than a day of driving through unmarked country. For a motorhome, the practical rules are the same as on any long US crossing. Plan fuel and water stops, since services in Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada can be far apart; check bridge clearances and road restrictions on older alignments through town centres; avoid unpaved sections in wet weather; and book campgrounds ahead in summer near the national parks. Allow at least two weeks for the whole route, in line with the 20 to 30 days of 1916 and the stops that make it worthwhile. A paper map as backup is wise, because mobile coverage can be patchy across the Great Plains and the Great Basin. ## Sources - [The Lincoln Highway (Federal Highway Administration)](https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/highwayhistory/lincoln.pdf) - [Lincoln Highway Association](https://www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/) - [Lincoln Highway (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Highway)