This is fascinating, I guess it really did come from Eisenhower but I've heard many variants. The first time I heard it, it was attributed to Bill Gates deciding where the paths on the MS campus should be (this was during peak Microsoft, sometime in the '90s).

I've also heard a version (or two) in which the campus was specifically one of the top tier US schools for CS (MIT/Stanford/CMU/etc.). The common thread was always that it was supposed to illustrate the visionary status of whoever was in charge, and/or the enlightened status of the company or university. The Eisenhower version would be the oldest one though, perhaps it was the original.

I didn't know it was attributed to someone (or many ones). I always thought it was a common reflection almost everyone develops after seeing a few of those natural paths compared to the officially built paths.

Amusingly, I'd heard it attributed to Steve Jobs.

It was actually Abraham Lincoln.

There might be a problem, though. A person can be a go to for a subject because he filled a hole at one point, and then proceeds to kidnap the subject entirely and even obtains new semi-informal-subordinates to work on the kidnapped subject under their orders. Such maintainers are usually not bad, but they can at the same time make tons of dubious discretionary choices and lack random amount of theoretical or practical knowledge. Depending on the culture, the situation can stay like this during years, even decades. Bonus points if such people suffer from the NIH syndrome...

"Desire paths". Also a form of least-cost, satisficing, problem solving / solution phenomena.

I heard that story but that it was Einstein at the IAS campus.