In 1912, when roads were largely dirt, bumpy, dusty in dry weather, and often impassable in wet weather, the Lincoln Highway Association conceived the first improved automobile road across the United States of America. Inspired by the Good Roads Movement, the Lincoln Highway ran from Time Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco through 14 states, and as the first automobile road across America it helped pave the way for a nationwide highway network while bringing prosperity to hundreds of cities, towns, and villages along its route. Its first officially recorded mileage in 1913 was 3,389 miles, and by 1924 it had been improved and realigned to 3,142 miles, although in the association's early years an improved road could be merely graded and few sections even had gravel. One of the hardest fought realignments occurred in the deserts of Utah west of Salt Lake City, where the association surveyed the Goodyear Cutoff while the Utah state government promoted a route west to Wendover, Nevada, across salt desert often submerged under water; that Wendover road was part of the Victory Highway, another named highway with New York and San Francisco as endpoints, favored by northern Californians for economic reasons. The association ceased activity at the end of 1927, and its last major undertaking was to mark the highway as a memorial to President Abraham Lincoln, its namesake. On September 1, 1928, thousands of Boy Scouts spread out along the road from New York City to San Francisco and installed about 3,000 concrete markers, roughly one per mile, each with a small bust of Lincoln and the inscription, “This highway dedicated to Abraham Lincoln.”