Illinois Lincoln Highway

Illinois Lincoln Highway. "Do a Good Turn Daily". In cooperation with the Lincoln Highway Association the Boy Scouts of America placed a reported 3,000 concrete marker monuments along the Lincoln Highway in 1928. The markers were meant to immortalize the dream of the ideal highway and as a lasting memorial to Abraham Lincoln. The Boy Scouts being newly established in 1920 hoped the effort would increase memberships and start new troops. When the project was announced letters and telegrams expressing approval of the idea with promised cooperation flooded the Scouts national headquarters, even troops in towns miles from the highway volunteered. Each step of the plan was carefully organized by the Lincoln Highway consuls in each state, Scout executives and some American Legion posts. , , The plan was to place all the markers simultaneously by thousands of Boy Scouts across the nation. Markers were shipped to each destination by rail, and then state highway departments transported them to individual sites. , , With an official signal from the New York headquarters of the Boy Scouts troops along the route would carry out their part of the project. The tremendous task was completed as many troops set markers on more than 100 miles of the highway in one day. , , The permanence and value of the Lincoln Highway markers can still be found today in the nation along portions of the route. In the western part of the Illinois Lincoln Highway, on a hard-packed gravel stretch of roadway, four markers still exist along the road. , , [Caption beneath left photo:] , Image: "Boy Scouts enjoying lunch after hard work on the Lincoln Highway, Illinois"