Lincoln Highway in Greene County, Iowa
The Lincoln Highway in Greene County, Iowa is a special National Register of Historic Places listing. It covers five individual sites and five historic districts along the highway in Greene County. The period of significance is 1912 to 1928, and the collection includes old dirt roads, parts that were paved and later became part of other highways, and various highway-related structures and markers.
A quick history
The Lincoln Highway was the first road intended to cross the United States from New York City to San Francisco. It was conceived in 1912 by Carl Fisher and developed with a national goal in mind. The route through Iowa, announced in 1913, ran about 358 miles from Clinton to Council Bluffs. Iowa’s rural roads were often muddy, so the Lincoln Highway Association aimed for the driest, flattest route. In Iowa it was known as State Primary Road No. 6 from 1920 to 1926, then became part of U.S. 30 in 1926 when the federal highway system was created. The Lincoln Highway Association operated until 1927, and in 1928 volunteers placed memorial markers along the route.
Greene County’s role
Greene County was an early leader in good road-building. It was the first Iowa county to receive Rural Free Delivery mail service, and it already had many bridges and miles of gravel roads by 1909. When the Lincoln Highway came through, the county built an official road system to connect its towns and raised funds to improve the highway. A Lincoln statue, given by E.B. and Minnie Wilson, was placed on the courthouse square in 1918 to honor the highway. Greene County also led in paving, becoming the first county in the state to pave its portion of the Lincoln Highway, with the first paved stretch about 6.5 miles long and all 30 miles in the county paved by 1924. The route was adjusted several times between 1913 and 1924 to straighten curves, reduce hills, and avoid railroad crossings.
What you can see today
The Greene County listing includes five historic districts and five individual listings, each preserving different pieces of the old highway. Highlights include:
- The Grand Junction area district: urban and rural road sections, a historic West Beaver Creek concrete bridge, a culvert and drainage features, and a Lincoln Highway Marker in front of the Grand Junction city hall.
- A Jefferson-area stretch that preserves an original section of the old highway near town, including an abandoned 600-by-66-foot segment (once part of the route) and related bridge and drainage works. This segment was realigned in the early 1920s.
- The Danger Hill district: a short, largely undeveloped stretch of old roadway on higher ground with a small collection of contributing resources, including an old bridge and culvert and an abandoned section that shows the highway’s original alignment.
- The Eureka Bridge and Raccoon River Valley district: the Eureka Bridge is a five-span reinforced concrete arch bridge built in the 1910s and widened in 1924. This district also includes surrounding road segments and drainage features tied to the highway’s crossings and routes near Eureka.
- The East/West Grand Junction–Iowa 25 area district: a larger rural-urban corridor with several miles of roadway built or upgraded in the early 1920s, along with multiple culverts and a notable I-beam bridge. It also includes two Lincoln Highway markers.
Markers and the statue
About 3,000 Lincoln Highway markers were made, and Greene County has six known markers: five along the highway and one in the county museum. Two markers are listed separately on the National Register: Lincoln Highway Marker (2) near the Lincoln statue in Jefferson, and Marker (1) in Jefferson on an old, restricted stretch of road. Marker (2) is part of the Jefferson Square Commercial Historic District (listed in 2011). The Lincoln statue itself, a replica of a Cincinnati sculpture, was dedicated in 1918 on the courthouse square to honor the highway.
Why it matters
The Greene County Lincoln Highway listings preserve a crucial period in American transportation history. They tell how communities built roads, funded improvements, and marked a national route that connected distant places and helped shape local development.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 20:36 (CET).