The National Road, also known as the Cumberland Road, Cumberland Pike, and National Pike, was authorized by Congress and President Thomas Jefferson in 1806 as the nation’s first federally funded interstate highway, with construction beginning in 1811. These banks would lend money like regular banks, with funding coming from the federal government or the The system includes 4% of the nation's roads, but carries more than 40% of all highway traffic, 75% of heavy truck traffic, and 90% of tourist traffic.System map with Interstate Highways in blue and other components in red Farmers and traders could move goods to markets in the east, and the road was thus seen as necessary to the country’s economy. One of the advocates for the National Road was Albert Gallatin, the secretary of the treasury, who would also The National Road – First Highway in America The National Road built in 1811 makes a path through the states of Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
As the National Road was considered vital to the nation, it was to be paved with broken stones. The bridge, which has an 80-foot arch, has been restored and is the centerpiece of a state park today. Ten states were chosen in 1996 for this new method of road financing.
The work was very difficult in the days before mechanized construction equipment. In addition to providing a way for settlers to get to the west, the road was also seen as a boon to business. It is still possible to travel portions of the National Road today. The National Road was a federal project in early America designed to address a problem which seems quaint today but was extremely serious at the time. By the summer of 1818, the road's western advance had reached Wheeling, West Virginia. According to the Federal Highway Administration, the 160,000-mile (260,000 km) National Highway System includes roads important to the United States' economy, defense, and mobility, from one or more of the following road networks (specific routes may be part of more than one sub-system):
Aside from designating the system, the act served several other purposes, including restoring $5.4 billion in funding to state highway departments, giving The act also created a State Infrastructure Bank pilot program. The road itself was eighty feet wide, and distances were marked by iron mile posts. The young nation possessed enormous tracts of land to the west. The original authorization called for the road to extend from Cumberland, Maryland to the Mississippi River. The National Road was the inspiration for other federal roads, some of which were constructed during the time the nation's first highway was still being built. He was Amazon.com's first-ever history editor and has bylines in New York, the Chicago Tribune, and other national outlets.Albert Gallatin's Report on Roads, Canals, Harbors, and RiversHistory of Roads in America and First Federal HighwayBiography of Daniel Boone, Legendary American FrontiersmanManifest Destiny: What It Meant for American ExpansionSignificant Eras of the American Industrial Revolution Robert J. McNamara is a history expert and former magazine journalist.
The idea was to build a road which would lead from the center of the United States at the time, which was Maryland, westward, to Ohio and beyond. The Congress passed legislation allocating the sum of $30,000 for the building of the road, stipulating that the President should appoint commissioners who would supervise the surveying and planning. William Cobbett, a British writer who visited a construction site on the National Road in 1817, described the construction method: The Casselman Bridge, a one-arch stone bridge built for the National Road in 1813 near Grantsville, in the northwest corner of Maryland, was the longest stone arch bridge in America when it opened.
In some parts, the road could follow an older path, known as the Braddock Road, which was named for a British general in the Federal-Aid Highways in Michigan.