The Lincoln Highway
Near Salt Lake City, Utah
This highway is dedicated to Abraham Lincoln, and that dedication tells one of the great stories of the American road. The Lincoln Highway, formally christened in nineteen thirteen, was the first road meant for automobiles to run all the way across the country, from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, some three thousand four hundred miles.
Utah was central to the whole enterprise. The state carries more total miles of the original Lincoln Highway than any other, and not because of gold or silver, but because of mud. The vast salt flats and desert west of Salt Lake City were among the hardest stretches anywhere to cross by automobile.
Through Salt Lake the route ran along what is now Third West and State Street. Long before interstates, this was the road that promised Americans they could drive from one ocean to the other.
