Carl G. Fisher, an Indiana-born entrepreneur and bicycle enthusiast, became a leading promoter of the automotive, auto racing, and real estate development industries in the early 20th century. After buying an interest in the U.S. patent to manufacture acetylene headlights, his firm supplied nearly every headlamp used on automobiles in the United States, helping make him wealthy. In 1909, he joined Indianapolis businessmen in investing in what became the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which evolved from a loose rock track into the first paved racing track and opened to 60,000 spectators in 1911. Foreseeing the automobile’s impact on American life, Fisher conceived and helped plan, develop, and construct the Lincoln Highway in 1913, the first road across America, connecting New York City and San Francisco. Frank Seiberling and Henry Bourne Joy joined him in forming the Lincoln Highway Association, and much of the highway was financed by contributions from automobile manufacturers and suppliers, although Henry Ford opposed the idea. Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas A. Edison, and Woodrow Wilson also sent financial pledges. Fisher later turned to creating the Dixie Highway from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to southern Florida, celebrated in 1916, and then shifted to real estate development in Miami Beach and later Montauk, New York, before dying at age 65. The Lincoln Highway’s history also included the 1908 debut of the Model T, Fisher’s 1912 conception of a transcontinental highway as a living memorial to Abraham Lincoln, the 1913 formation of the Lincoln Highway Association in Detroit, and active local promotion in Van Wert County in 1914, where residents supported inclusion on the route, raised funds, elected local consuls, and placed an official marker in front of the Hotel Marsh. In 1915 the Marsh Hotel opened with 55 guest rooms, and Henry Osterman filmed his drive across the highway. A three-mile Army Motor Convoy traveled through Van Wert in 1919 on its way from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco, and later milestones included the 1923 construction of the Marsh Foundation School, Boy Scout planting of concrete highway markers in 1931, the first Van Wert Peony Festival in 1932, the passage of Admiral Byrd’s snow cruiser in 1939, Martha Raye’s 1949 stop near Convoy, the 1956 Federal Highway Act, construction of Interstate U.S.-30 through Van Wert County in 1968, and the 1992 reformation of the Lincoln Highway Association in Iowa to interpret and preserve America’s first transcontinental automobile road.