1910's

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A promotional film for the Lincoln Highway from 1915, this short reel shows a groundbreaking ceremony for Carl G. Fisher's dream project, the first coast-to-coast automobile highway. Conceived by headlight entrepreneur Fisher, also said to be the first car dealer in US history, the man, like many an American, seems to have become a visionary in the eternal quest of making the almighty buck.

In fact, the Lincoln Highway was the first memorial to Abraham Lincoln, predating the monument in Washington, DC by perhaps more than ten years.

Although Thomas Edison and Theodore Roosevelt were active boosters and financiers of Fishers idea, it is hard to say if these are the two men orating in this film. Hundreds of towns across the US lobbied to have the Lincoln Highway pass through their way with songs, articles and public events dedicated to the new interstate. This appears to be one such film.

Ultimately, the highway would follow a historically American path, stretching from Times Square in New York City, along the Chambersburg Turnpike so associated with Gettysburg, then in tandem with portions of the legendary Pony Express, up and over the dreaded Donner Pass and on to the final destination of Lincoln Park in San Francisco, California.

Carl G. Fishers Lincoln Highway would go on to become the major influence of Eisenhower's future Interstate System and Germany's Autobahn.