America's first transcontinental highway passed 137 feet south of this spot, and in the Schererville area it followed the Sauk Trail and was first paved with Macadam in 1911. It was first conceived at a meeting in Detroit, Michigan, on July 1, 1913, and on September 14 a formal announcement declared that a highway would be built from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, covering 3,389 miles. Concrete paving began on a matching basis between the Lincoln Highway Association and local communities. Among the significant events in its history was the traversal of the United States by an army truck convoy in 1919 that included future president Dwight D. Eisenhower, a trip that took 62 days; at that time, the speed limit in Schererville was 8 m.p.h. Construction of the "ideal section" between Schererville and Dyer, Indiana, intended as a model for future highway design, began in 1922 and was completed in 1923. In 1928 the Boy Scouts of America marked the highway from coast to coast with concrete posts featuring a Lincoln medallion and directional arrows.