America's first coast-to-coast road still runs through western Pennsylvania

Though gas prices are a bit high right now, you may still be planning a summer road trip. And if you have the time, why not take a spin on the old Lincoln Highway, America's first coast-to-coast road that still runs right through the heart of the Pittsburgh region.

In the five years after the first Model T Ford rolled off the assembly line in Detroit in 1908, Americans became obsessed with the automobile.

But while cars were becoming more common in cities and towns across the country, decent roads were not.

"In the early years, if you owned an automobile, you could only really get around a little bit in the town because you couldn't drive to the next town," said Brian Butko, director of publications at the Heinz History Center and author of several books on the Lincoln Highway.

He says that before automobiles, if you wanted to travel long distances, you either took a train or tried your luck on dirt wagon roads never designed for cars.

Thankfully, he says, there were visionaries like automotive pioneer Carl Fisher, who rallied the auto industry and car clubs alike to create America's first coast-to-coast highway named in honor of President Abraham Lincoln.

"The Lincoln Highway Association was incorporated on July 1, 1913," said Butko. "And I am sure that is not a coincidence because that would have been the 50th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg. And there was a real push at that time to bring the country together. And what better way than a highway that would join east to west, and people from the north and south could go on it."

The Lincoln Highway was completely privately funded and stretched more than 3,000 miles from New York City to San Francisco, crossing 12 states and running right through the heart of Pennsylvania.

The Lincoln Highway Association had a string of local ambassadors along the highway's route to represent their association in local affairs, assist visitors, and monitor and maintain their portion of the road.

Communities from Gettysburg to Greensburg and beyond experienced a tourism boom as motorists traveling east and west stopped along the way.

Travelers spent money at quirky roadside attractions like Bedford's Coffee Pot gas station and the famous S.S. Grand View Point Hotel, perched high atop the Allegheny Mountains.

The highway lasted roughly 15 years before being numbered and absorbed into the federal highway system, and today, much of the Lincoln Highway is known as U.S. Route 30.

But historians say the roughly 200-mile stretch that cuts across Pennsylvania remains one of the best-preserved Lincoln Highway corridors in the country.

If you want to experience that history for yourself, just outside Latrobe sits the Lincoln Highway Experience Museum, where visitors can learn about what still survives from the old road and what has been lost to time.

Spencer Simpson, the manager of visitor services at the museum, is one of many people dedicated to preserving the legacy of the Lincoln Highway. Simpson says part of the Lincoln Highway's charm is that even today, there is still something for everyone willing to leave the interstate behind and take the scenic route.

"There is something about American life that is fairly consistent over the last century where there is a touchpoint for everybody," Simpson said. "And finding the point that everyone can relate to as an individual, and expanding upon that. Thinking, what might it be like for you if you were traveling the Lincoln Highway back in the 1920s or 1930s, and what would you find interesting as you are driving along? It might not be the Ship Hotel or the giant Coffee Pot, but it might be the beautiful state parks and forests we have in Pennsylvania. There is something here for everybody because life is very different from it was back then in some ways, in other ways it is very much the same."

So whether you want to "see the USA in your Chevrolet," or explore Pennsylvania from a different perspective, consider taking a modern-day trip into the past, on the road that helped change America forever.