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Discovery Mid-America October 2009

The ‘National Road’ and its bridges

Five years ago, on a trip east to visit our daughter and her family, I photographed an interesting old bridge in western Maryland. The classic stone arch reflected in the water below, creating a near-perfect circle, surrounded by the rural beauty of the Alleghenies.

Recently, after researching the bridge. I uncovered some fascinating history. The bridge, over the Casselman River west of Cumberland at Grantsville, was built in 1811, and opened for traffic two years later. At the time, it was the largest single-span stone bridge in the world.

The Casselman Bridge was part of the National Road, or Cumberland Pike. Authorized by Thomas Jefferson, the route would eventually extend from Baltimore to St. Louis.

The Casselman Bridge in Grantsville, MD. (photos by Ken Weyand)

The National Road began in Cumberland, crossed the Allegheny Mountains in southwest Pennsylvania, and reached Wheeling, WV, in 1818. It then pushed westward across Ohio and Indiana, and into Illinois. Final destination was Jefferson City, MO, via St. Louis. But when the road reached Vandalia in 1839, public transportation was turning to railroads and funding ran out. Eventually extensions would be built east to Baltimore and west to St. Louis in a chain of turnpikes. The road enabled thousands of settlers to move west, with towns springing up along the route to serve travelers and homesteaders.

By 1835, the road west of Wheeling was turned over to the states, which maintained the road and erected tollhouses. A few restored tollhouses can still be seen, along with about 75 miles of brick surface in Ohio built by convict labor. There are original iron mileposts, along with reproductions.

The route demanded a clearing 66 feet wide, with a 20-foot roadway. The road was surfaced with macadam, a method using crushed rock developed by John McAdam, an engineer from Scotland. It was the first use of this new road surface in the United States, with a 20-inch high center tapering to 12 inches at the edge. Earlier government roads were merely cleared forest trails with stumps “not to exceed 15 inches in height,” and the occasional bone-jarring “corrugated road” of logs.

In 1879, Harper’s Monthly interviewed several old men who had experienced the National Road in its heyday. One of them recalled “the wagons were so numerous that the leaders of one team had their noses in the trough at the end of the next wagon ahead and the coaches, drawn by four or six horses, dashed along at a speed of which a modern limited express might not feel ashamed. Besides the coaches and wagons, there were gentlemen traveling singly in the saddle, with all their luggage stuffed into their saddlebags.”

At nearly every mile on the National Road travelers could find taverns, where they could get a good meal for 25 cents. Many taverns offered overnight stays. A number of taverns, built close to the highway, can still be seen and serving as bed and breakfast houses, antique shops and tour homes. Many are listed on the National Historic Register.

Other attractions on the road are “S” bridges. Historians disagree as to why engineers in the early 1800s came up with the S-shape. One theory: the road seldom intersected with rivers at perfect right angles. An S-shape bridge allowed one design to handle all river approaches. Another theory: the S-shape forced horse-drawn traffic to slow from a gallop and cross the bridge at walking speeds, thus protecting the bridge.

Mansion House Tavern, Centerville, IN

The Blaine Hill Bridge is located in the village of Blaine, east of St. Clairsville, OH. Built in 1828, it spans Wheeling Creek, a tributary of the Ohio River. At 345 feet in length, it is the longest surviving “S” bridge on the National Road.

A white-haired gentleman pulled out of his driveway as my wife and I stood on the edge of his lawn admiring the ancient bridge. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like,” he said. “I’ve lived here since 1964. There are three roads here. The first is the roadbed of the old National Road, where the bridge is. Just behind it is highway forty, and interstate seventy is just over the hill. Take as many pictures as you like.”

The bridge was declared unsafe for automobile traffic after more than a century and a new bridge, the Blaine Viaduct, was built in 1932-33. In 2001, the old bridge was designated Ohio’s Bicentennial Bridge.

Other bridges, museums, restored taverns and related historic sites line the National Road across Ohio, and a National Road Visitor Center is located just across the western border in Richmond, IN. In nearby Centerville, we left the interstate and drove west on Highway 40 through several National Road towns, including the town of Dublin, named not for its Irish roots, but for a hill near the town that required wagon drivers to “double” their teams.

Today, travelers can trace the National Road on Highway 40, which follows most of the route, frequently joining Interstate 70, running parallel to much of the original road. In 2002, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta designated the entire 800-mile route from Baltimore to St. Louis the “Historical National Road, an All-American Road.”

Among many websites and links, visit www.nps.gov/archive/fone/natlroad.htm. For Ohio travelers, the state visitor centers distribute a 46-page book, The Historic National Road in Ohio by Glenn Harper and Doug Smith.

Ken Weyand can be contacted at kweyand1@kc.rr.com.

> Traveling with Ken Archive — past columns

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