Historian Andrew Wayne Saunders will deliver a lecture on the Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental road for automobiles in the United States, in Sonoma this month.
The talk, offered by Sonoma Valley Historical Society, will take place at Sonoma Community Center’s room 110 on Thursday, April 23, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., preceded by a reception at 6 p.m. The cost is $5 for society members and $10 for nonmembers. Reservations are not required.
Saunders, based in Citrus Heights, California, is working to preserve and interpret Lincoln Highway and elevate the culture heritage it provides. In his lecture, he will focus on this fascinating but almost forgotten part of U.S. history.
Before the development of modern transportation systems, California was one of the most isolated areas in North America. Cross country travel was nearly impossible, except on railroads.
After the first practical, modern automobile was invented in 1886, there were new public demands for a long-distance national highway. Daring drivers made difficult journeys across the country to bring attention to the need for a “coast-to-coast rock highway.”
The Good Roads Movement emerged, leading to the creation of the 3,389-mile Lincoln Highway, dedicated in 1913, and other national trails. The full Lincoln Highway route originally ran through 13, states, from Times Square in New York City to Lincoln Park in San Francisco.
Over the years, Lincoln Highway was improved and realigned many times, and by 1924 it had been shortened to 3,142 miles. The highway gradually was replaced with numbered designations after the establishment of the U.S. Numbered Highway System in 1926, with most of the route becoming U.S. Route 30 from Pennsylvania to Wyoming.
When the Interstate Highway System was formed in 1956, former alignments of the Lincoln Highway were largely superseded by Interstate 80 as the primary coast-to-coast route from the New York City area to San Francisco.
