Lincoln Highway

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This article is about a highway in the United States. For other uses, see Lincoln (disambiguation).

Lincoln Highway
Route information
Length:	3,389 mi (5,454 km)
Existed:	1913 – present
Major junctions
West end:	Lincoln Park in San Francisco, CA
East end:	Times Square in New York, NY
Location
States:	California, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York
Highway system
Auto trails

Lincoln Theater in Cheyenne, Wyoming

The Lincoln Highway was one of the earliest transcontinental highways for automobiles across the United States of America.^[1] Conceived in 1912 by Indiana entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher, and formally dedicated October 31, 1913, the Lincoln Highway ran coast-to-coast from Times Square in New York City west to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, originally through 13 states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California. In 1915, the "Colorado Loop" was removed, and in 1928, a realignment relocated the Lincoln Highway through the northern tip of West Virginia. Thus, there are a total of 14 states, 128 counties, and more than 700 cities, towns and villages through which the highway passed at some time in its history.
The first officially recorded length of the entire Lincoln Highway in 1913 was 3,389 miles (5,454 km).^[a] Over the years, the road was improved and numerous realignments were made,^[3] and by 1924 the highway had been shortened to 3,142 miles (5,057 km). Counting the original route and all of the subsequent realignments, there have been a grand total of 5,872 miles (9,450 km).^[4]
The Lincoln Highway was gradually replaced with numbered designations after the establishment of the U.S. Numbered Highway System in 1926. Today, Interstate 80 serves as the primary highway from the New York City area to San Francisco.