Lincoln Highway Orphaned Bridge

Tama, Iowa

The Lincoln Highway was announced to the world on Oct. 31, 1913, America's first national memorial to President Lincoln. Unfortunately, proclaiming a coast to coast highway is far easier than actually building one, and the Lincoln Highway remained a series of wildly mismatched roads for years.

One of the hundreds of towns it went through was Tama, Iowa. In 1915 the town showed its pride in its good fortune by building a concrete bridge for the highway across Mud Creek with the words "Lincoln Highway" cut out of its guard rails.

Unfortunately, the Lincoln Highway was rerouted around the town only 11 years later, and then made obsolete in the 1950s with the construction of the interstate highway system. But the bridge is still there.