MD -- Historic National Road @ Cumberland:
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- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- NRCUMB_130330_01.JPG: The National Road
The Road that Built the Nation
". . . so many happy people, restless in the midst of abundance."
-- Alexis de Tocqueville, 1840.
Americans are an adventurous people. From past to present, they have used feet, horses, wagons, stagecoaches, canals, railroads, bicycles, automobiles, trucks and buses to "perpetually change their plans and abodes."
Centuries ago, George Washington dreamed of a highway joining east and west. In 1806, Thomas Jefferson made that roadway a reality when he risked his Presidency by authorizing, "an Act to regulate the laying out and making [of] a road from Cumberland in the State of Maryland to the State of Ohio."
The next generation built that "United States Road," a thirty-foot wide, crushed stone thoroughfare that spanned rivers, traversed mountains and opened up America's western frontier to the Mississippi. Merchants, traders and families from all over the world journeyed along this route in their quest to claim land, expand markets and form new lives.
Today, you can trace that same path along the Historic National Road. Discover the places, events and stories that shaped this nation. To have your own adventure, stop by any Welcome Center or local visitor center to speak to a travel counselor and pick up a Historic National Road map-guide.
- NRCUMB_130330_07.JPG: The Historic National Road - The Road That Built the Nation
Where the Road Began
You are standing at the starting point of this country's first federal road building project, the National Road. A vision of George Washington as a means to develop the continent and to unite the country, his idea was championed by Thomas Jefferson and authorized by Congress in 1806.
Nestled in the Allegheny Mountains, Cumberland sat on the edge of the frontier in the early 19th century. Crossing the mountainous landscape was challenging. The eastern continental divide was a barrier for westward expansion and trade in the Ohio Valley. Still, daring pioneers pushed westward.
"Easily first among the several through highways running west from the Atlantic seaboard, and ranking with the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails of the far west, is the Old National Road, which though completed as a government project only from Cumberland, Maryland to Wheeling (then Virginia, now West Virginia) was connected up with the older pikes from Baltimore, Frederick and Hagerstown, and subsequently with the newer lines west of the Ohio River, making for all time the shortest and most natural way for road travel from tidewater at Chesapeake Bay to the junction of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers at St. Louis, Missouri."
Robert Bruce traveled the National Road in 1916, and produced a guidebook that included "a series of detailed maps showing topography and principal points of historic interest." His insight ass those years ago continues to enlighten today's traveler on the historical significance of this great highway that for so many years was "a vital factor in the life, politics and industry of the country." Thank you, Mr. Bruce.
- Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.)
I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
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- Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].
