"The Lincoln Highway: It was the road of Gettysburg, Pretty Boy Floyd, Notre Dame, the Great Salt Lake, and the Gold Rush Trail. A sparkling ribbon of roadway that threw open the Plains to curious travelers, it was celebrated by Americans amid fireworks and parades. Within a few years, it would become the perfect symbol of American roadside culture, the very embodiment of our rebellious restless spirit.  Conceived by Carl G. Fischer, the founder of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the highway was baptized by Henry B. Joy, president of the Packard Motor Car Company, who proposed that the coast-to-coast highway serve as a memorial to President Abraham Lincoln.  The notion of the road proved so popular that 100,000 travelers made their way to the dedication, a nationwide celebration in 1916 in LaPorta, Indiana."