Submitted by Leona Baker, Historical Society of Salisbury Township

Long before there was a Salisbury Township, there was travel on the east-west Great Minquas Path and the north-south Octororo Trail. As European pioneers began to migrate west from Philadelphia and north from Newcastle ports, the trails also migrated a bit to accommodate wagons as well as foot traffic.

This rutted dirt highway, the Philadelphia-Lancaster Turnpike, had switchbacks on the mile-long Gap Hill, now known as Old Lincoln Highway. The other main highway through Lancaster County was King's Highway, better known today as Route 340.

As motorized vehicles replaced horse-drawn conveyances and travelers extended their dreams toward the Pacific coast, the need for smoother, wider roads arose. In 1913, the Lincoln Highway Association (LHA) was established to form a coast-to-coast highway system "... like nowhere else on earth ... without toll charges."

Financing was never easy, requiring a constant publicity campaign. Auto-related businesses as well as the cities that would profit from the across-the-nation super-road were contacted for funds.

Congress authorized construction of the Lincoln Memorial Road, but only from Washington to Gettysburg. To convince Congress to extend the road to San Francisco, the LHA set out in a convoy of cars and trucks to navigate the entire country. The trip of 3,000 miles took travelers through 34 days of mud pits in Iowa, sand drifts in Nevada, flooded roads and cracked axles and through the experience of radiators boiling over before parading triumphantly into San Francisco, passing crowds of cheering residents.

LHA gained further attention of federal as well as local funding when the U.S. Army used the route as part of preparations for military training for World War I. Local bond issues helped greatly to speed up the project.

In Pennsylvania, the route roughly followed the 62-mile Philadelphia-Lancaster Turnpike, first laid out in 1758. The official route was announced in October 1913, and cities all along the designated route held bonfires and fireworks, concerts and parades, even street dances.

By 1916, an official guidebook estimated the trip would take 20 to 30 days, assuming the average driving speed would be 18 miles an hour. The motorist was advised to travel with tire chains, shovel, axe, jacks, tire casings and inner tubes, plus a set of tools. Anticipating the mud the motorist could expect to encounter, further advice was: "Don't wear new shoes."

The Lincoln Highway officially begins with a marker at Times Square in New York City and ends at a pylon in the center of San Francisco. It was dedicated all across the nation at 1 p.m. on Sept. 1, 1926.

Simultaneously, Boy Scout troops across the nation placed a total of 3,000 concrete markers at important crossroads, minor crossings and other intervals to assure motorists that they were on the right road. The signs carried the Lincoln Highway insignia, a bronze medallion that stated, "This Highway Dedicated to Abraham Lincoln," and a directional arrow. Many of those 3,000 markers have disappeared as roads were widened. Lancaster County has several, but the closest to Salisbury Township is in Paradise, on the south side of the road just west of the bridge at Ambassador Road.

Salisbury Township has an even older marker from the earliest days of Philadelphia-Lancaster Turnpike days: a stone pylon etched with "45m ... P, 19 ... L," signifying 45 miles to Philadelphia and 19 miles to Lancaster. Salisbury Township has always had an important connection to this nationwide highway.