lincoln highway part 001

i've gone on before about old roads. i love 'em. my advice to all the young people is to go find them and get lost. i've waxed on before about old hwy 40, but i think now it's worth mentioning the lincoln. for roads scholars it must begin here. route 66 gets all the buzz. it helps when they write a song and make a tv show about you. and i'm sure it's pretty too. some call it the mother road. but i honestly think this is a misnomer. the real mother road is the lincoln highway.
conceived in 1912 by industrialists keen on affording the public better roads and formally open for travel in 1913, it was the first continuous coast to coast road across the united states. it was not so much a purpose built road, but rather a route linking together existing roads and improving conditions on the worst sections along the way. in this sense it was a patchwork of so many of the local roads sewn together to cover the country. and in the spirit of the time, maintained and promoted through local municipalities rather than a single agency.
at this time serious road travel was not for the faint of heart. the auto and motorcycle were still in relative infancy and often unpredictable. and the road infrastructure hadn't yet caught up with the ambition of driving for extended periods. so often you read advice from veteran travelers in guidebooks advising would be adventurers to "gas up at every opportunity" and carry extra fuel for the long gaps between services. the surfaces could vary between newly paved sections to gravel depending on where you were, and it was never advisable to travel after dark. the lincoln, though primitive would be the impetus for so many of the road projects that followed, including 66.
in the 1920's the states began numbering highways and the original lincoln route was re-designated us 40 from san francisco to utah. it basically runs along us 30 from there to the east coast. as roads will it has undergone significant and constant realignments in the years that followed. but for the more serious road geeks like myself, it is the original route that is most interesting. here you travel back in time and sometimes see the ghosts of the old highway as you travel.
for the most dedicated of enthusiasts there is the lincoln highway association, a group dedicated to promoting and preserving this national relic. each year their members hold a conference in one of 12 states along the original route. and this year they're meeting in my home state just up the road in lake tahoe. included in this year's list of activities is a drive from the original western terminus in lincoln park, san francisco to lake tahoe along the original alignment. sounds like a lot of fun. and maybe i might just find myself tagging along behind the caravan of runabouts and straw boaters going all the way --- on the lincoln highway.