'United States Road' handbill photograph   Save
Norris Schneider; National Road/Zane Grey
Description: United States Road handbill, 1819. The notice is a request for bids from contractors interested in working on the National Road (also called the Cumberland Road or the U.S. Road), the first federally sponsored roadway. The notice states that David Shriver, Jr., superintendent of the National Road, is accepting bids for construction of the road segment that would link Uniontown and Washington, Pennsylvania. The U.S. Congress commissioned the National Road in 1806 as a conduit to the West, linking the Potomac River and Cumberland, Maryland, to St. Louis, Missouri, and the Mississippi River. The road opened Ohio and the Northwest Territory to settlement and trade with the eastern U.S. By 1838 the Cumberland Road had reached Springfield, Ohio; three years later it reached Vandalia, Illiinois, where construction stopped due to a funding shortfall. By this time the railroads attracted travelers and business shipping away from the National Road, and the project was abandoned. A century later the advent of the automobile made the National Road popular once again. The National Road bisected Ohio along what is now U.S. 40. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL05817
Subjects: Cumberland Road--History; Transportation--Ohio--History; Roads--United States--History; Shriver, David, 1769-1852; Handbills, Advertising
Places: Cumberland (Maryland); Allegany County (Maryland);