In what was then the large state of Virginia, the Allegheny Mountains formed a major barrier to settlement and development, and turnpike engineer Claudius Crozet faced a difficult task in carrying a road across them. Cheat Mountain was the greatest challenge on the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike, which rose from 2700 feet on the valley floor near Durbin to 3700 feet in less than 5 road miles. The mountain’s summit had its own harsh climate, with colder temperatures year round, especially severe winters, snows recorded as early as August, and snowfall that sometimes lasted into early summer because dense virgin spruce forests kept the mountaintops cool and damp. Cheat Mountain also received heavy precipitation, with nearby Travellers Repose getting almost 30 inches less water each year, and the wet conditions often left the road so poor that in some years months passed before travelers could cross. Summer visitors could enjoy the cool, Canada-like climate and the boreal-like beauty of the red spruce forests, but crossing the mountain tested endurance, as reflected in the Trotter brothers’ complaint while carrying the mail from Staunton to Parkersburg from 1855 to 1858 that even knocking the gable end of Hell out and setting it against Cheat Mountain with 40 days and 40 nights of fire and brimstone would not melt the snow enough to get the mail through on time.