During the eighteen hundreds, the United States' industrial revolution and the rise of bicycles and early automobiles created pressure for better roads, as rough trails and wagon ruts offered few connections between cities. After Henry Ford began producing an affordable automobile in 1908, growing numbers of motorists needed places to drive. In 1912, Carl Fisher, president of the Prest-O-Lite automotive lighting company and a developer of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Miami Beach, Florida, proposed an all-season road across the United States. An association dedicated to that goal was formed on October 31, 1913, to establish a continuous improved highway from the Atlantic to the Pacific, open to lawful traffic without tolls and to be concrete wherever practicable, to be named the Lincoln Highway in memory of Abraham Lincoln. When first mapped in 1913, the route measured 3,389 miles; by 1924, realignments had shortened it to 3,142 miles. Beginning at Times Square in New York City and ending at Lincoln Park in San Francisco, it passed through 13 states before reaching California. Although planners hoped it would be completed before the 1915 opening of the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, the route was only gradually improved and was not fully paved until the early 1930s. A marked route across the continent drew thousands to California, and the road became known as America's First Coast to Coast Highway, Main Street Across America, and America's First Promoted Transcontinental Highway. The association ended its financial involvement in 1928 but continued promoting the highway into the 1940s. In 1919, Lt. Dwight David Eisenhower traveled the highway through Tracy as part of a military convoy, and as president he later drew on that experience, along with his observations of the German Autobahn, in promoting the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s. In Tracy, the Lincoln Highway followed 11th Street in 1913, crossing the Transcontinental Railroad where this bridge stands today. Its route through Tracy contributed greatly to the city's growth, and by 1918 motorists passing through saw electrical shops, automobile garages, filling stations, and restaurants developing there. From 1926 to 1933, the highway was officially signed U.S. 48, and from 1934 to 1972 it was U.S. 50.