Lincoln Freeway: Within the early levels of auto tourism, it was a bumpy route | Historical past

The paving of the Lincoln Highway reached downtown Elkhorn in the summer of 1920. “Elkhorn was in bloom,” said Patsy Schmidt of the Elkhorn Historical Society. The boom lasted until the early 1930s when Elkhorn’s section of the Lincoln Highway was bypassed through Blair in favor of a shorter route between Iowa and Nebraska.

ELKHORN HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Mike Conc

In 1913, Nebraska was at the center of the United States’ most important road, the Lincoln Highway.

At the time it was designed and built, the famous 3,400-mile route was causing excitement across the country. Ready to hit the accelerator hard in 1913, Americans were from an age when the railways were the primary source of overland transportation to an era of freedom where four-wheel drive machines could take them anywhere – including the 463 bone-shaking ones Miles over Nebraska on the Lincoln Highway.

The headlight manufacturer Carl G. Fisher from Indianapolis is considered to be the creator of the Lincoln Highway. On July 1, 1913, Fisher gathered a group of leading automakers and automotive enthusiasts to form the Lincoln Highway Association.

The aim was to build a highway that would connect the Atlantic to the Pacific, largely without government support. Rather, Fisher and his coworkers have received $ 10 million in commitments, including $ 1 million from automakers. Cement factories also contributed tons and tons of their product for concrete.

In the early stages, it was a bumpy route that the Lincoln Highway proponents and supporters followed, but their vision, persistence, and hard work paved the way for the modern system of U.S. freeways and freeways.

The Lincoln Highway was primitive by modern standards. In 1924, it stretched nearly 463 miles over Nebraska. Most of the road – 329 miles – was gravel. Earth was graded just over 80 miles. The rest was brick, concrete, or asphalt.

ELKHORN HISTORICAL SOCIETY

In Nebraska, the Lincoln Highway ran parallel to the Union Pacific Railroad, which followed the Platte River and sections of the Pony Express Route and the Mormon, California, and Oregon Trails in parts of the state.