Named for peacocks once kept on a neighboring farm, Peacock Road is a narrow brick road on the National Road’s original alignment through Guernsey County, built in 1828. It is typical of the steep grades and sharp curves created when the road followed the topography of eastern Ohio’s rough, hilly terrain. As automobiles became more popular in the twentieth century, Ohio’s Department of Highways adapted the road for modern vehicles by eliminating sharp curves where possible, flattening hills, and bypassing sections to create a straighter, faster route. In some places, hills were cut away so the road could be rebuilt on a flatter grade, leaving some roadside buildings standing above the road. In 1985, this brick-paved portion of the old National Road was listed in the National Registry of Historic Places for its significance as a surviving section of the road’s original location and for its role in a six-week event in 1918 that supported the Allies in World War I. Wartime manpower demands had left many roads impassable, and with railroads already overburdened, the National Road was chosen for overland truck shipments except for two small, unimproved sections. Federal officials appealed to Ohio Governor Cox to repair them, and because of labor shortages, prisoners from the Ohio Penitentiary and the Mansfield Reformatory worked night and day for six weeks to open the road for trucks bound for Baltimore ports. When U.S. Route 40 was improved across Ohio in 1936, this section of the National Road was bypassed and Peacock Road became a county road. Still used by a few residents, it preserves the look of the National Road as it appeared in the 1920s, with its brick surface and width of 17 feet.

Photo: Rev. Ronald Irick

Photo: Rev. Ronald Irick

Photo: Rev. Ronald Irick

Photo: Rev. Ronald Irick

Byesville, Ohio · USA