The National Road crosses six states from Baltimore, Maryland, to East St. Louis, Illinois, fulfilling the dreams of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson for an all-weather route across the Allegheny Mountains that would connect the Eastern Seaboard with the Midwest. Conceived by Albert Gallatin, secretary of the treasury under Thomas Jefferson, and authorized by Congress in 1806, it became the nation’s first federally funded interstate highway and opened the West to the movement of people and goods. Construction began in 1811 in Cumberland, Maryland, extending an earlier route from Baltimore. By 1818 the road reached the Ohio River, by 1833 it was completed to Columbus, Ohio, and in 1850 it extended to Vandalia, Illinois. The road is an engineering marvel, with graceful stone arch bridges crossing streams and rivers, while inns and taverns were built to meet travelers’ needs. Many of the bridges and buildings that characterized the road’s early days still stand in towns along its route. Much of the old National Road remains part of U.S. Route 40, and although several original sections are no longer used as highways, they can still be explored. Its longest segment is in Ohio, covering 227 miles from Bridgeport on the east to the Indiana state line on the west.