Plank Road
Asheboro, Randolph County, North Carolina
Marker Inscription
Plank Road. This street is the route of the Fayetteville-to-Salem plank road, a toll road 129 miles long, built 1849-54.
Erected by North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
The Story
This stretch of street once carried the Fayetteville-to-Salem plank road, a 129-mile timber-surfaced toll highway built between 1849 and 1854. Passing through Randolph County, it linked the Cape Fear trade to the Moravian settlements of the north-central Piedmont, letting loaded wagons roll over sawn boards instead of miring in clay.
Why it matters
As the longest plank road in North Carolina, it marked an ambitious, short-lived experiment in internal improvement just before railroads made such wooden highways obsolete.
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Related events
- · Fayetteville and Western Plank Road
Themes & tags
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