(Roughly) Daily

In the beginning, the Lincoln Highway was more an idea than a highway. But it was a very powerful idea.

On its dedication—Halloween, 1913—the towns and cities along the 3,300-mile route erupted in what the San Francisco Chronicle called“spontaneous expressions of gratification”—a wave of municipal celebrations animated by “the spirit of the great national boulevard.” The governor of Wyoming declared a day of “old-time jollification … and general rejoicing” that included, in a town called Rawlings, the erection of an enormous pyramid of wool. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, residents enjoyed a festive shower of locally made Quaker Oats.

The Lincoln Highway, which ran from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, gets credit as the first transcontinental road of the automobile age, but it was no highway in the modern sense; when it was dedicated, it was more like a loosely affiliated collection of paved, gravel, stone, and dirt paths, some recently trailblazed through the trackless rural West. Its boosters—a collection of auto industry execs and ex-politicians led by an auto-parts entrepreneur named Carl Fisher—were gifted promoters, and they successfully sold America on the notion that a sea-to-shining-sea motorway could both unite the nation and sell a lot of cars…

Head on down the road with CityLab On The Road.

* Tom Cochrane

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As we put the top down, we might spare a thought for Gebhard Jaeger; he died on this date in 1959.  An inventor, engineer, and manufacturer, he designed and patented the first cement mixer in 1905, then went on to add other patents (including, in 1928, the mixer truck) and build a successful manufacturing company equipping the suppliers who served road builders and construction contractors through the road and building construction booms of the 20th century.

From American Builder (March 1925)

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