In the late nineteenth century, a movement to improve inadequate plank and dirt roads grew with the popularity of bicycling, the introduction of the automobile, and the need to improve travel to and from rural areas. Ohio, a leader in the manufacture of brick paving blocks, moved quickly to upgrade roads as toll roads declined in popularity and the need for free roads was recognized. An act passed in 1892 authorized Cuyahoga County to levy a road tax, and with those funds the Commissioners selected the Wooster Pike as one of three road improvement projects. The first brick surface pavement on a rural road in the United States was laid along the Wooster Pike, a former stagecoach route from Cleveland to Wooster. Construction on four miles of brick pavement began in the fall of 1893 and was completed in 1896. The road began at what is now Olde York Road in Parma Heights and ended in the Village of Albion, Ohio, and the York Street Tollgate for the Brooklyn and Parma Wooden Plan Toll Road Company was located northeast of the beginning point along the Wooster Pike.
