PRESIDENTS DAY ON THE OLD NATIONAL ROAD
This Hoosier Scientist returned home to Richmond, Indiana for Presidents Day weekend, travelling 100 miles along the route that used to be America’s National Road. Initially funded under President Jefferson in 1806, the National Road was our country’s first large-scale investment in a national transportation system, designed to facilitate freight and passenger travel across the Allegany Mountains, connecting the emerging states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois with the original 13 colonies. By 1839, $6.8 million in federal construction funding had produced 591 miles of stone-surfaced roadway 66 feet wide, stretching from a navigable portion of the Potomac River at Cumberland, Maryland to the then capital of Illinois at Vandalia. The road’s bridges crossed hundreds of small and large waterways, typically producing an “S” curve each time the road turned to cross the barrier perpendicularly to allow the shortest and least expensive bridge possible. Few modern travelers stop to see the monuments that honor the National Road and the people who followed it westward. Fewer still bother to visit the parts of the original construction that remain, such as the bridge in Englewood Reserve that continues to carry cars on what is now a peaceful park road. Millions of cars and trucks, however, do travel each day along the basic route. The National Road was succeeded first by U.S. Route 40 and later by Interstate 70.
One of the many towns stitched into the fabric of America by the National Road was Springfield, Ohio. Prior to the Revolutionary War, Springfield’s location had been the site of Piqua, a Shawnee town that was home to about 3000 people and surrounded by rich fields of corn. In retaliation for Shawnee raids against settlers south of the Ohio River, 1000 Kentucky militia under George Rogers Clark attacked and destroyed Piqua in 1780 in what is generally considered the only important Revolutionary War battle fought in Ohio.
By 1801, the original Piqua (not to be confused with the newer town by that name on modern maps) had been replaced by Springfield. It was not until the 1830’s, however, when the National Road arrived in Springfield, that the new town truly prospered. For nearly a decade, Springfield benefitted from being the National Road’s western terminus while politicians debated whether the road should swerve south through Dayton and Eaton or continue due west on the shortest route to Indianapolis and beyond. My hometown eventually benefited from President Andrew Jackson’s decision to send the road due west, crossing the deep gorge of the Whitewater River at Richmond, Indiana.
As it has for 187 years, the National Road/US 40/I-70 corridor continues in many ways to define the heart of America between the Allegany Mountains and the Mississippi River and between the waterways of the Great Lakes and the Ohio River. Driving on the route this weekend, we saw modern tractors being repositioned for the coming agricultural season, countless semi-trailer trucks carrying the diverse products of the region’s fields and factories to markets around the nation and the world, and we saw thousands of cars carrying Americans of all types. There seemed to be fewer Canadians and other foreign visitors than before, but the National Road itself still serves as a reminder that America’s modern greatness was built by people who came here from far away. There is greatness still to be found in the heart of America, but that greatness is fragile.