The Lincoln Highway, created in 1913 by linking existing routes, became the nation’s first memorial to President Lincoln and the first transcontinental highway, at a time when only about 150 automobile trips crossed the country each year. Envisioned by the Lincoln Highway Association as a continuous toll-free road from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it included the section that crossed the river here, which remains part of the original 1913 route. New standards for the highway were based on heavy daily passenger automobile and motor truck traffic at specified average speeds, while official guidance said a typical pleasure trip across the country could be made in twenty to thirty days by driving about seven hours a day and averaging about eighteen miles per hour. Travelers were advised to carry practical equipment, avoid hazards such as loaded firearms, alkali water, and fording water without first wading through it, and even to build a sagebrush fire if real trouble arose and help was needed. Even with the highway, crossing the country remained difficult, and in 1919 the first transcontinental Army convoy averaged 53 miles per day along its route. Dwight Eisenhower took part in that trip as a young officer, and the memory of it later helped spur him, as president, to build the interstate highway system.