The National Road, the first federally funded road project authorized by Congress, began in Cumberland and extended to Vandalia, Illinois, serving as a gateway to the western frontier and becoming America's first "super highway." To capture the commerce it fostered, the Maryland legislature linked a series of privately funded turnpikes to extend the road eastward from Cumberland to Baltimore. The Hagerstown and Conococheague Turnpike opened in 1819, running from Hagerstown's Public Square to Wilson Bridge on Conococheague Creek, with Washington Street forming part of that route. Before railroads developed, the National Road was the main route of travel from the west to Washington, and several early national leaders from the western states, including Presidents Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, Zachary Taylor, and William Henry Harrison, as well as Senator Henry Clay, traveled this way. Many thousands of pioneers also passed through in their westward migration. Although some sporadic development occurred along the National Road in this area before the Civil War, Hagerstown's west end grew after the Western Maryland Railway reached the city in 1872. A construction and maintenance facility opened on Elizabeth Street in 1884, and in 1906 the railroad centralized its repair facilities there. Employing hundreds of workers, the railway helped drive a residential building boom from the 1890s to the 1910s, making the area a strong railroad community for the Western Maryland Railway, though not quite a company town.