INTER-COUNTY HIGHWAYS IN OHIO (1912)

The first map of Ohio highways was prepared in 1912 by the State Highway Department, and identified the routes of 444 inter-county highways. One year later, when the route of the Lincoln Highway was marked for the first time, it would follow all or part of at least seventeen of these inter-county highways. These seventeen highways are listed below, in an east to west progression, giving both the number and the name of the highway. Conspicuous by their absence are "missing" legs of the highway between Minerva and East Canton, and between Upper Sandusky and Delphos, both of which were designated in later years-- probably as a result of the Lincoln Highway.

Along with this system of inter-county highways, Ohio had a network of Main Market Routes. At the "proclamation of route" in September 1913, the Lincoln Highway route was to basically follow Main Market Route No. 3 across Ohio. This market route actually began at Bridgeport, Ohio (on the Ohio River opposite Wheeling, West Virginia), and came north thru Steubenville before turning west at East Liverpool.

Variations from the market route occured in two places as the route was first marked. Between Minerva and Osnaburg (now East Canton), that part of the market route by way of New Franklin and Paris was apparently never used; rather, a more direct route by way of Robertsville.

Between Galion and Lima, that part of the market route by way of Marion and Kenton was removed from the "proclaimed" route after only three weeks. Instead, Henry Joy settled on what he considered a more direct route via Bucyrus and Upper Sandusky. In truth, this was a longer route than the Marion/Kenton route, but it more closely aligned with the eventual "straight" route that would eventually be marked in 1919 [see §10 and §10a], eliminating Lima from the route.