A section of an original Seedling Mile on the Lincoln Highway was completed on November 3, 1915, in Grand Island, the second city in the United States to build such a concrete roadway. The original Seedling Mile extended from the corner of Willow Street one mile east to near the Seedling Mile School. By 1913, the newly formed Lincoln Highway Association had chosen and dedicated the route of the Lincoln Highway nationwide, seeking to develop a paved, toll-free, transcontinental highway from New York City to San Francisco. To advance that goal, the association created the Seedling Mile program, with these short paved stretches intended as the seeds from which paved roads would spread across the nation. This Seedling Mile was built with locally donated cement and funds, and Fred W. Ashton of Grand Island raised $1,170 for the project. A 1931 realignment of the highway allowed this section to be preserved, and it remains the only original concrete Seedling Mile section that has not been widened or covered with asphalt.