Tadmor was one of the most important transportation centers in early Ohio history. As early as 1809, keelboats were poled upriver from Dayton to load and unload freight there. By 1837, the Miami and Erie Canal had reached Tadmor, linking it to the Ohio River to the south and Lake Erie to the north. In the 1830s, the National Road was built through Tadmor, connecting it east and west, and in 1851 the Dayton & Michigan Railroad began freight and passenger service to the growing town. Although residents hoped its strategic location would bring prosperity, repeated flooding on the Great Miami River stifled its growth, and Tadmor was abandoned after a dam built by the Miami Conservancy District in 1922 to retain floodwater made the site uninhabitable. Authorized by Congress in 1806, the National Road was the nation’s first federally funded interstate highway. Intended to create closer political and economic ties between east and west with an all-weather route across the Allegheny Mountains, it was regarded as a major engineering feat. The road opened Ohio and much of the Old Northwest Territory to settlement, gave Ohio goods access to eastern markets, and enabled Ohio citizens to take important roles in the affairs of the new nation. It became known for its many quality inns and taverns during the stagecoach era, declined after 1850 as railroads became the preferred mode of travel, and later revived as U.S. 40, a busy round-the-clock artery lined with truck stops, motor courts, and diners until interstate highways superseded it in the 1960s.