Utah was a key player in early national transportation when a golden spike was driven at Promontory to complete the first transcontinental railroad. The Beehive State also played a pivotal role in the original coast-to-coast highway — not because of any precious metal, but because of mud.
The Lincoln Highway, named for President Abraham Lincoln, was an ambitious project that started in 1913 to create the nation's first hard-surface road stretching from coast to coast — New York City to San Francisco — in the shortest practical route, some 3,400 miles.
If Utah's mountain passes didn't pose enough challenges for early automobiles, then the mud flats of the Great Salt Lake Desert did.
 | Deseret News graphic Lincoln Highway routeRequires Adobe Acrobat. |
"The salt flats had been a bugaboo for early travelers," said Rollin Southwell of Salt Lake City, director of the Lincoln Highway Association.
The section across the salt flats was passable only in summer and even then, warning signs sometimes had to be installed to steer drivers clear of the mucky sections of road. However, at least this large section of Utah mud was a natural phenomenon.
Most of the 12 states the Lincoln Highway traversed also had their own artificial "water holes," where some farmers would fill road holes with water in hopes of generating income by pulling stranded motorists out of the mud.
The Beehive State also boasts a record amount of the Lincoln Highway.
"Utah has more Lincoln Highway miles than any other state," Southwell said. The reason is that at least three different routes were used trying to traverse the south end of the Great Salt Lake and its salt flats and also the rugged canyons east of Salt Lake City.
Carl Fisher, founder of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Miami Beach, came up with the idea for the transcontinental highway and used private and corporate donations to get it going. Its heyday was the early 1920s, and its path changed somewhat over the years in attempts to find the shortest route. The road was originally marked by occasional poles with red, white and blue stripes and a blue "L" marking. Small portions of the road eventually were paved.
The highway traveled through New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada and California.
By 1930, numbered highways replaced named roads. The Lincoln Highway Association faded away, and these local routes became the focus. The Federal Highway Administration and eventually the interstate highway system came along.
Southwell, also past Utah chapter president of the Lincoln Highway Association, said the highway group was reborn in 1992 to try to capture the legacy of this historic path. The group has lobbied Congress to create a historical preservation corridor for what's left of the road.
The organization wants the Lincoln Highway to have a more significant mention in history books, where it often is overlooked.
The Pony Express route and the Mormon Pioneer Trail are two historical paths that are very well known these days, thanks to continuing preservation projects. However, the Lincoln Highway still remains a rather obscure route despite being the forerunner of our current interstate highway system.
Like many projects, the Lincoln Highway faced various political challenges. Some Utah and Nevada residents wanted the road to connect with Wendover. The third and final version of the road did — in 1927.
Another issue — unresolved even today — was that Fisher gave the state of Utah $25,000 to complete the road work from Clover/Stockton to Ibapah and use the Goodyear Cutoff. Those funds were given with the understanding that Johnson Pass in the Stansbury Mountains, southeast of Tooele, would be renamed "Fisher Pass" and that a monument or marker would honor Fisher in that section for his generosity. Today, Johnson Pass is still named that, but Southwell believes a monument would be appropriate.
If Southwell's dream happens, Utah would be the first state some day to have a monument along the road to honor its founder, Fisher, also known as "Crazy Carl" because he was a race car driver.
In Utah, a significant portion of the original Lincoln Highway traverses the Dugway Proving Grounds and is not open to the public.
Still another oddity is that although much of the route followed the railroad lines in other states, in Utah it did not. Unlike the railroad, the highway came directly to Salt Lake City.
Southwell said the current Lincoln Highway Association has some 1,000 nationwide members, including 95 in Utah.
One problem in developing tourism on the road is that so much of it is dirt and gravel, so tour buses can't use it. Pamphlets are available that outline its route, though.
Most of the road was graded, and pavement was rare. Between Magna and the Great Salt Lake, rare concrete sections of the highway are still visible from U-201 at the Dead Man's Cave historical marker.
Today much of the road travels U.S. highways 1, 30, 40 and 50, or at least parallels those highways in various states.
Southwell said Model A Fords, Packards, Pierce Arrows and Studebakers were the original cars that traveled the highway. Because of mountain passes and muddy areas, this was only a summer event. Estimates are that 216 cars traveled it in 1916. Most took 20 to 30 days to traverse the country.
The route had few comforts. West of the Mississippi, travelers had to camp. There were no restaurants or motels along most of the route. Mechanical breakdowns were common.
Most commonly, cars would drive the route from east to west, then be loaded on a train for the trip back east.
A World War I military convoy once even traveled the entire highway to test its effectiveness.
Today, many local and state roads have replaced and paved over the old Lincoln Highway.
For more information on the Lincoln Highway, go online to www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org.
E-MAIL: lynn@desnews.com