In Search of . . . MAIN STREET ACROSS AMERICA

As of May 1998, there are twenty-one incorporated cities and villages on the 1928 route of the Lincoln Highway across Ohio. The two largest cities on the route are Canton and Mansfield, which are also the only two cities on the route with a population over 50,000. These same two cities are also two of seven county seats on the route, the other five being [from east to west] Lisbon, Wooster, Bucyrus, Upper Sandusky, and Van Wert.

Of the twenty-one corporations, eleven have a thoroughfare named "Main Street." In seven of these eleven towns, Main Street is also the route of the Lincoln Highway (see bold entries in chart below). There are also roadways named Main Street in Hanoverton, Minerva, Mansfield, and Delphos; however, these streets either intersect or are parallel with the Lincoln Highway route. The streets that were Main Street in some of these towns were renamed Lincoln Way as part of the early promotion of the Lincoln Highway as a transcontinental route and the original memorial to Abraham Lincoln. [Note that the entry of "Maine Street" in Mifflin is in fact a correct spelling, as all the streets in that small town are named after several of our United States]

Another popular street name in these cities and villages is "Market Street." Six of the twenty-one incorporated areas on the 1928 route of the Lincoln Highway have a roadway named Market Street, and the main north-south street in Canton is Market Avenue. Interestingly, all but one of these seven towns are in the eastern half of the state. More interestingly, in each of the three easternmost counties on the 1928 route, the county court house is at the intersection of an east-west street on the route of the Lincoln Highway and a north-south street/avenue named "Market" (Lisbon in Columbiana County; Canton in Stark County; Wooster in Wayne County). In the towns of East Liverpool, Minerva, East Canton, and Van Wert, Market Street is again a "north-south" street that crosses the "east-west" route.