July 3, 1938
On the eve of the United States’ 162nd birthday, NBC Radio conducted a nationwide broadcast commemorating the Lincoln Highway a quarter-century after an association was established to promote that coast-to-coast vehicular road. This radio program featured interviews with several Lincoln Highway Association (LHA) officials who had been instrumental in helping to create what became the nation’s premier route during a crucial period of road-building.
The transcontinental Lincoln Highway ultimately passed through a total of 14 states, 128 counties, and more than 700 municipalities. The idea for this highway was developed by the entrepreneurial Carl Fisher (1874-1939), who envisioned a hard-surfaced road stretching between the east and west coasts for the “horseless carriage.” Fisher helped organize the LHA’s inaugural meeting in 1913 in Detroit that made the highway a reality, and he provided a message for the 25th anniversary of that meeting that was read by a radio announcer.
“The Lincoln Highway Association has accomplished its primary purpose, that of providing an object lesson to show the possibility in highway transportation and the importance of a unified, safe, and economical system of roads,” asserted Fisher in his radio message. “Now I believe the country is at the beginning of another new era in highway building (that will) create a system of roads far beyond the dreams of the Lincoln Highway founders.”
Fisher’s words contained much more than just wishful thinking; about a month before that radio broadcast, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) signed into law the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1938 that called for a report on the feasibility of a system of transcontinental toll roads. This led to the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads’ study Toll Roads and Free Roads, which is widely regarded today as the first official step towards creating the Interstate Highway System.
Image Credit: Public Domain
For more information on the Lincoln Highway, please check out https://highways.dot.gov/highway-history/general-highway-history/lincoln-highway
Transportation History 
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