Henry Bourne Joy and the Lincoln Highway - Laramie, WY - Wyoming Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

The marker is in an I-80 rest area at exit 323. It stands next to the commerative monument moved here in 2001.

The text of the marker reads: This monument commemorates the Lincoln Highway, America’s first transcontinental automobile road, and Henry Bourne Joy, the first present of the Lincoln Highway association (1913). Joy, also president of the Packard Motor Car Company is sometimes called the father of the nation’s modern highway system. He said that his effort to create the Lincoln Highway was the greatest thing he ever did. The old Lincoln Highway passed over the crest of the hill seen beyond the monument. This was the historic “Summit” the highest point on the original 3500 mile route from New York to San Francisco. The coast to coast highway existed as a private enterprise, managed by the Lincoln Highway association and financed through memberships and donations from automobile and road building industries. The association lobbied state and federal governments to support road construction. In 1916, the federal government began granting matching funds to the states and the network of primitive dirt trails that made up the Lincoln Highway across Wyoming began to see some improvement. Much of the original Lincoln highway evolved into US 30 in the 1920s and Interstate 80 in the 1950s. The Henry B. Joy monument was originally located at the site of one of his favorite camping spots beside the Lincoln Highway in Wyoming’s Great Divide Basin west of Rawlins (see photo). He was camping there in 1916 when he saw the most beautiful sunset he had ever witnessed and expressed a desire to be buried at that site. That didn’t happen but his family sis provide and place the monument following his death in 1936. It was moved from that remote location in 2001 to protect it from increasing vandalism.

Marker Name: Henry Bourne Joy and the Lincoln Highway Marker Type: Rural Roadside Addtional Information: Not listed Group Responsible for Placement: Not listed Date Dedicated: Not listed Marker Number: Not listed Web link(s) for additional information: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   03/22/2022 frog1962 visited it 05/03/2021 find waldo visited it 05/15/2018 theHostas visited it 07/07/2017 wildernessmama visited it 09/29/2016 PeterNoG visited it 08/25/2014 bluesnote visited it 08/11/2013 TinmanUT visited it 08/14/2012 kaiwarrior visited it 07/24/2012 MeanderingMonkeys visited it 08/20/2011 VisN visited it 07/06/2010 3-Bearss visited it 07/01/2010 CFD29 visited it 09/04/2009 JGL visited it 07/23/2009 petendot visited it 06/27/2009 Benchmark Blasterz visited it 05/21/2009 ronjean visited it 06/29/2008 MountainWoods visited it

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