Americans have long been an adventurous people, using many forms of travel to change their plans and abodes, and the National Road grew from George Washington’s dream of a highway linking east and west. In 1806, Thomas Jefferson authorized an act to lay out and build a road from Cumberland, Maryland, to Ohio, making that vision a reality despite risking his presidency. Built by the next generation as the United States Road, this thirty-foot-wide crushed-stone thoroughfare spanned rivers, crossed mountains, and opened America’s western frontier to the Mississippi. Merchants, traders, and families from around the world traveled this route to claim land, expand markets, and begin new lives. Built in the early 1800s, this paved highway west was America’s first federal project, and much of its approximately 800-mile length is still marked by historic milestones.
