Saturday, Oct. 31, marks 113 years since the Lincoln Highway was formally dedicated. It was one of the first roads in the United States built for cars to cross the country, and its western end is easy to miss. The terminus is a small marker in Lincoln Park, next to a bus stop outside the Legion of Honor museum.
A road named for Lincoln
The highway was the idea of Indiana entrepreneur Carl Fisher, who also created the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Miami Beach. With industrialists Frank Seiberling and Henry Joy, he imagined an improved, hard-surfaced road of almost 3,400 miles from New York to San Francisco on the shortest practical route. The Lincoln Highway Association was formed in 1913 to promote it with private and corporate donations.
The road was dedicated Oct. 31, 1913. Its first recorded length was 3,389 miles, cut to 3,142 miles by 1924 as routes were straightened. It was the first national memorial to Abraham Lincoln, beating the Lincoln Memorial in Washington by nine years. The association says the public's enthusiasm for it helped lead to the numbered U.S. highways of the 1920s, and eventually to the Interstate system. After the Interstate system was formed in the 1950s, Interstate 80 largely replaced the old highway as the main coast-to-coast route between New York and San Francisco.
The Bay Area route
According to Wikipedia's account of the final 1928–30 alignment, the highway came across the Central Valley on what became U.S. 40 to University Avenue in Berkeley, then out to the Berkeley Pier. Across the water, the route picks up again at the Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco. From there the route followed Hyde Street, North Point Street and Van Ness Avenue to California Street, then ran 54 blocks west on California to 32nd Avenue. It turned onto Camino del Mar into Lincoln Park.
The road ends at the plaza and fountain in front of the Legion of Honor. The western terminus marker and an interpretive plaque are to the left of the museum, next to the bus stop.
California's piece of the highway had several routes over the years. The association's California chapter notes an earlier 1913–27 route through the San Joaquin Valley and over Altamont Pass, and a 1927–28 route across the Carquinez Strait. The road crossed the Sierra at both Donner Pass and Echo Summit.
Making a trip of it
For a local road trip, follow the last miles of the old route: start at the Hyde Street Pier, take Van Ness Avenue to California Street, and head west on California almost all the way across the city to Lincoln Park. Then look for the marker beside the bus stop.