In April 1812, as the United States prepared for a possible war with Great Britain, Michigan Territorial Governor William Hull became commander of the Army of the Northwest and led it from Dayton, Ohio, to Detroit while building Hull's Trace, a two hundred mile road, as it marched. The army left Dayton on June 1 and, cutting the trace through the wilderness from Urbana north, laid logs crosswise across swampy areas to create a rough but stable corduroy roadbed that could support supply wagons. In late June, a detachment from Frenchtown commanded by Hubert Lacroix also worked on the road, attempting to follow a route laid out under an 1808 territorial Legislative Council act. War was declared in June 1812, and Hull's army arrived at Detroit on July 5. Linking Detroit and Ohio, Hull's Trace was intended to be the Michigan Territory's inland lifeline during the War of 1812, but the Detroit River and Lake Erie gave the British easy access to the Michigan portion of the road. American efforts to use the road to bring supplies and men from Frenchtown, present-day Monroe, were foiled twice before Hull surrendered Detroit on August 16, 1812. After the war, the route was used for ever-improving roads, beginning in 1817 with a new military road. In 2000, low water levels in the Huron River revealed a quarter mile of the old corduroy road, lying three to six feet under Jefferson Avenue, with axe marks visible on some of the logs. This rare surviving example of a corduroy road is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.