The National Road crosses six states from Baltimore, Maryland, to East St. Louis, Illinois. It fulfilled the dreams of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to build an all-weather route across the Allegheny Mountains connecting 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 west to Vandalia, Illinois. It is an engineering marvel, with graceful stone arch bridges crossing streams and rivers, and inns and taverns built to meet the needs of travelers. Many of the bridges and buildings from the road's early days still stand in towns along its route, and much of the historic road remains part of U.S. Route 40, while several original segments can still be explored. Its longest section lies in Ohio, covering 227 miles from Bridgeport in the east to the Indiana state line in the west.
