Limestone (Founding of Maysville)

Maysville, KY

Long before any road was surveyed, great herds of bison wore this path into the Ohio Valley wilderness as they moved toward the region's salt licks. Native peoples—including the mound-building cultures of earlier ages—followed the same trace, and it later carried Indian war and hunting parties, earning the name Warrior's Path. When pioneers arrived, they too walked in the buffalo's footsteps, turning an animal track into a highway of settlement.

Aberdeen, OH

The village of Aberdeen was founded in 1816 on the north bank of the Ohio River at the terminus of Zane's Trace, the first continuous road cut through Ohio. Blazed under Ebenezer Zane in the late 1790s, the Trace linked Wheeling to the Ohio River crossing at Maysville, opening the interior to settlers, mail, and trade. Aberdeen grew up as a river crossing and gateway at the road's western end.

Rome, OH

Founded in 1835 by William Stout along the Ohio River, this riverport town of Rome grew where the earlier settlement of Adamsville had briefly served as Adams County's seat in 1797–1798, complete with a log courthouse and jail. Stout's son Elisha later carried the westering impulse further, helping found the frontier cities of Omaha and Denver.

Pierce Township, OH

Like hundreds of little crossroads hamlets that took root across southwestern Ohio in the 1800s, Spann grew up where two country roads met near Dutch Creek. A settlement of this kind lived on its essentials: a shared water well, a general store that doubled as the post office beginning in 1860, and, a bit later, the Ten Mile Presbyterian Church, which gathered the community from 1912 until 1943. As farms consolidated and travel patterns shifted, places like Spann faded from the map — though here the old general store still stands as a survivor of that vanished village.