National Road
South Union Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
From the creation of the National Road in 1806 until the advent of the railroads in the 1850s, thousands of travellers crossed Chestnut Ridge between the East and Midwest. Founded in 1791, Hopwood was a major resting stop for traffic in both directions.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Authorized in 1806, the National Road was the nation's first federally funded highway, carrying settlers, freight, and mail west across the Appalachians toward the growing Midwest. For nearly half a century, until railroads eclipsed it in the 1850s, thousands crossed Chestnut Ridge here in southwestern Pennsylvania. The village of Hopwood, founded in 1791, thrived as a busy resting stop for travelers moving in both directions.
Why it matters
The National Road opened the trans-Appalachian West to a young republic, knitting the eastern seaboard to the frontier and setting the pattern for federal investment in American infrastructure.
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Related events
- · Construction of the National Road
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Uniontown
South Union Township, PA · est. 1946
Uniontown traces its founding to Henry Beeson, who raised a blockhouse here in 1774 on the very ground where the county jail would later stand. For decades it was a modest frontier settlement, but its fortunes turned when the National Road pushed through after 1811. As the great highway threaded the mountains, Uniontown became a busy waystation on the route west.
Uniontown
Uniontown, PA · est. 1946
Uniontown traces its founding to Henry Beeson, who raised a blockhouse here in 1774 on the very ground where the county jail would later stand. For decades it was a modest frontier settlement, but its fortunes turned when the National Road pushed through after 1811. As the great highway threaded the mountains, Uniontown became a busy waystation on the route west.
Toll House
Menallen Township, PA · est. 1947
This toll house is one of six original gatehouses built along the Cumberland Road — the great National Road that was the first federally funded highway in the United States, pushing west across the Appalachians toward the Ohio country. The roadway was completed through this section of Fayette County in 1817–18, and when the federal government handed the road over to Pennsylvania in 1835, the state built these toll houses to collect the fees that would maintain it. Travelers, freight wagons, and Conestoga teams once paused here to pay their way west.
National Road
Redstone Township, PA · est. 1948
The National Road was the country's first federally funded highway, championed by Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin as a way to bind the eastern seaboard to the growing western settlements. Construction began at Cumberland, Maryland, in 1811 and reached Wheeling on the Ohio River by 1818. Later handed to state control as a toll road from 1835 to 1905, its route was eventually rebuilt as U.S. Route 40.