Philadelphia & Lancaster Turnpike Road - Coatesville, PA - Lincoln Highway on Waymarking.com

The Lincoln Highway is a terrific place to learn about America through historical signs and markers. Occasionally, these signs are about the Highway itself. This sign traces back the history of this section of the Lincoln to 1792. The marker is located at the intersection of E. Lincoln Highway and Veterans Drive, on the right when traveling west on E. Lincoln Highway toward York and Gettysberg. Near the sign, embedded in an ancient stone wall is an original mile marker, alluded to on the sign. The sign indicates the relative position of this mark to the beginning of the road in Philadelphia, accurately written an 35 miles east of this point.

This was the nation's first major toll road, built by a private company incorporated 1792 by the state legislature. Completed two years later and praised as the finest highway of its day, the stone-and-gravel turnpike stretched 62 miles. The 35th milestone out of Philadelphia was placed here. Early in the 20th century, this road was acquired by the state; it became part of the transcontinental Lincoln Highway and U.S. 30.

This turnpike predates the Lincoln Highway by about one hundred twenty-five years but was eventually included in it. Between Philadelphia and Lancaster, the Lincoln Highway followed Lancaster Pike. When Lancaster Pike was completed in 1795 as one of America’s first toll roads, it connected the largest city on the continent with the largest inland city in America. The crushed stone macadam surface that was state-of-the-art in the early-19th century would still be covering Lancaster Pike in the early-20th, and the tolls would stand until six years after its absorption by the Lincoln Highway. These mile markers were put in at its completion, or possibly during it. Records about that are sketchy. The historical marker of this waymark was erected in 1999 by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.