The Lincoln Highway

By 1900, the United States had an excellent rail network but no system of long-distance highways, and private associations made the earliest attempts to blaze auto trails with colorful names and emblems. The Lincoln Highway, launched in 1913 and billed as a memorial to Abraham Lincoln, became the first successful effort to mark, promote, and build an automobile highway spanning the United States. Across Iowa, it generally followed the main line of the Chicago and North Western railroad, often passing train depots such as the one in Lisbon, and in the pioneer days of motoring travelers found gas, food, lodging, and tourist information mainly on downtown main streets. By the mid-1920s, more than sixty named and marked highways ran in Iowa, but federal financial support created a coordinated federal-aid highway system by the end of the 1920s, and in 1926 numbers replaced names on those roads. Across Iowa, U.S. 30 shields replaced Lincoln Highway signs, and although the Lincoln Highway officially ceased to exist after 1926, many Iowans continued to think of U.S. 30 as the Lincoln Highway. On September 1, 1928, Boy Scouts planted nearly 3,000 commemorative Lincoln Highway markers along the entire route. Linking New York City and San Francisco, the road crossed Iowa from Clinton to Council Bluffs by way of Lisbon, Mount Vernon, Marion, and Cedar Rapids in Linn County, and in 1953 the U.S. 30 shields through Lisbon and Mount Vernon and along Mount Vernon Road in eastern Cedar Rapids were removed when the route was relocated to a bypass south of the original road.

Lisbon, Iowa · United States