May 1913 – Coast-to-Coast Highway Through Lorain?

Here’s an interesting article from the days when most roads weren’t paved, and a coast-to-coast concrete highway was just being discussed.

The article is from the front page of the May 27, 1913 Lorain Daily News, and contemplates the possibility that Lorain might be one of the cities through which a proposed highway from the Atlantic to the Pacific would pass.

Here is a rough transcription of the article. (I’ve indicated where I could not make out what the Daily News article said.)

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OCEAN TO OCEAN ROAD MAY BE

CONSTRUCTED THROUGH LORAIN

National Highway, a Pavement From the Atlantic to

Pacific, Made Possible by Cement Company Gift

Here’s Chance for City’s Civic Bodies to Do Good

Work in Securing Road for Lorain

A proposed ocean-to-ocean highway national improved highway-pavement from the Atlantic to the Pacific taking the northern route through Ohio has been made certain by the action of the American Portland Cement Company, who have pledged in the undertaking approximately 2,700,000 barrels of cement as a gift. The entire undertaking will cost $29,000,000, and no call for pledges of money or other aid will be made until half this is raised. The pledges already made are valued at $9,500,000.

The old plan of routing through Columbus and Indianapolis has been abandoned the incorporators of [illegible] the Lincoln Highway Association and instead the road will go through Akron, Cleveland and Toledo in crossing Ohio. It will follow Lake Erie closely in going from Cleveland to Toledo.

This means to Lorain an opportunity of obtaining at once the badly needed east to west god roads into the city, and thousands of dollars in trade. The motorist and he will be the chief user of the new highway is a free [illegible] and the patronage of tourists traveling east and west is to be greatly sought after. Whether the road will pass through Lorain is uncertain, but it is thought that in operation and boosting by Lorain people, with autoists and the board of commerce, can obtain the advantage for Lorain, which, through the metropolis of the county has always been neglected in the building of state and intercounty roads.

Route of the proposed ocean to ocean highway in accordance with the revised schedule follows.

New York to Philadelphia; Harrisburg; Pittsburgh; Akron; Cleveland; Toledo; Chicago; Clinton, IA; Des Moines, IA; Omaha, Neb.; Denver, Colo.; Salt Lake City, Utah; Big Pine, Cal.; and two branches through California, one in San Francisco and the other to Los Angeles.

The highway association hopes to sell every automobile and motorcycle owner in states through which the highway runs a certificate of the Lincoln Highway Association at $[illegible].

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As it turns out, the coast-to-coast highway being discussed in the article ended up being the Lincoln Highway, whose Association was founded a little more than a month later on July 1, 1913. The original route was cobbled together with a combination of existing roads and new construction.

But the highway's eventual route did not go through Lorain as hoped. Instead, the road took a straight route across the north central part of Ohio, bypassing Cleveland and Toledo, and going through Canton, Mansfield, Marion, Kenton and Lima instead.

Lorain would eventually be a city on a coast-to-coast highway, when U. S. Route 6 (the Grand Army of the Republic Highway) was created and signed across the state.