Americans long traveled in search of new opportunities, using changing forms of transportation as they continually shifted their plans and homes. George Washington envisioned a highway linking east and west, and in 1806 Thomas Jefferson authorized a road from Cumberland in Maryland to Ohio despite risking his presidency. The next generation built the United States Road, a thirty-foot-wide crushed-stone highway that crossed rivers, traversed mountains, and opened the western frontier to the Mississippi. Merchants, traders, and families from around the world traveled this route to claim land, expand markets, and build new lives. Built in the early 1800s as America’s first federal project, the approximately 800-mile National Road remains partly visible through its historic milestones.

Photo: Mark Hilton

Photo: Bradley Owen

Photo: TeamOHE

Photo: Mark Hilton