The National Road sustained Frostburg for almost two centuries. As the road was being surveyed in 1811, Josiah Frost began laying out lots, and businesses serving passing stagecoaches and wagons soon lined a developing Main Street. By the 1850s, travel along the road was eclipsed by railroads and canals, but the town's prosperity continued through a lively trade in locally produced coal and fire bricks. In 1897, the Gladstone Hotel brought big-city comforts to Frostburg, with bellboys, a New York chef, a hundred rooms, a café, a barbershop, a fifth-floor observatory, tennis courts, and a petting farm for guests and their children. The hotel was later revived by the advent of the automobile and its purchase by William Gunter, who in 1903 added a cockfighting arena and a jail so lawmen escorting prisoners along the National Road could rest comfortably while prisoners were held below. Today, the Gunter Hotel still welcomes travelers along the Historic National Road.