Lincoln Highway topic of NHS ‘High Noon’ program

CARSON CITY, Nevada – The story of the Lincoln Highway – the nation’s first transcontinental roadway – and its route through Nevada is the topic of this month’s High Noon Shootout with Neal Cobb at the Nevada Historical Society.

Jim Bonar, past president of the Lincoln Highway Association in Reno, is the guest speaker and will discuss the history of the highway and what the highway association does today to preserve that history.

The event is Thursday, Nov. 16, at noon.

The Lincoln Highway Association was formed in 1913 and was responsible for mapping and definition of the first highway across the continental U.S.

A group of business boosters named the Lincoln Highway before there was much roadway at all.  In 1919, the federal government sent about 81 vehicles and 300 men – including future President Dwight D. Eisenhower – across the 3,200-mile, mostly unpaved and often ungraded route to study the terrain and driving conditions.

It took the team 62 days of travel from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco along a route that, in some places, was the wagon wheel track made by immigrants.

The Lincoln Highway was built mostly in the 1920s. In Nevada, much of the road became U.S. Highway 50, then turned north at Fallon to Fernley and proceeded west along what became Highway 40, now Interstate 80.

Host Cobb will show the program “Tales of Nevada: Past & Present,” featuring Bonar and then answer questions after the program.

Admission is $5; free for NHS members and children 17 and younger. The Nevada Historical Society is located at 1650 N. Virginia St., in Reno.