Interstate 70 (I-70) is a major east–west Interstate Highway in the United States that runs from I-15 near Cove Fort, Utah, to a park and ride lot just east of I-695 in Baltimore, Maryland. I-70 approximately traces the path of U.S. Route 40 east of the Rocky Mountains. West of the Rockies, the route of I-70 was derived from multiple sources. The Interstate runs through or near many major cities, including Denver, Topeka, Kansas City, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore. The sections of the Interstate in Missouri and Kansas have laid claim to be the first Interstate in the United States. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has claimed the section of I-70 through Glenwood Canyon, Colorado, completed in 1992, to be the last piece of the Interstate Highway System, as originally planned, to open to traffic. The construction of I-70 in Colorado and Utah is considered an engineering marvel, as the route passes through the Eisenhower Tunnel, Glenwood Canyon, and the San Rafael Swell. The Eisenhower Tunnel is the highest point along the Interstate Highway System, with an elevation of 11,158 feet (3,401 m).
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of the National Road early in the century, wanted to do business with settlers crossing the Appalachian Mountains. The railroad faced competition from several existing and proposed enterprises, including the Albany-Schenectady Turnpike, built in 1797, the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825, and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. At first, the B&O was located entirely in the state of Maryland; its original line extending from the port of Baltimore west to Sandy Hook, Maryland, opened in 1834. There it connected with Harper's Ferry, first by boat, then by the Wager Bridge, across the Potomac River into Virginia, and also with the navigable Shenandoah River.
U.S. Route 40 or U.S. Highway 40 (US 40), also known as the Main Street of America, is a major east–west United States Highway traveling across the United States from the Mountain States to the Mid-Atlantic States. As with most routes whose numbers end in a zero, US 40 once traversed the entire United States. It is one of the first U.S. Highways created in 1926 and its original termini were in San Francisco, California, and Atlantic City, New Jersey. US 40 currently ends at a junction with I-80 in Silver Summit, Utah, just outside Salt Lake City. West of this point US 40 was functionally replaced with I-80, and as these segments of I-80 were constructed the western portion of US 40 was truncated several times.
The Wheeling Suspension Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the main channel of the Ohio River at Wheeling, West Virginia. It was the largest suspension bridge in the world from 1849 until 1851. Charles Ellet Jr. designed it and supervised construction of what became the first bridge to span a major river west of the Appalachian mountains. It linked the eastern and western section of the National Road, and became especially strategically important during the American Civil War. Litigation in the United States Supreme Court concerning its obstruction of the new high steamboat smokestacks eventually cleared the way for other bridges, especially needed by expanding railroads. Because this bridge was designed during the horse-and-buggy era, 2-ton weight limits and vehicle separation requirements applied in later years until it was closed to automobile traffic in September 2019.
National Old Trails Road, also known as the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway, was established in 1912, and became part of the National Auto Trail system in the United States. It was 3,096 miles (4,983 km) long and stretched from Baltimore, Maryland, to California. Much of the route follows the old National Road and the Santa Fe Trail, following its decommission it later became the Western portion of U.S. Route 66.
The Northwestern Turnpike is a historic road in West Virginia, important for being historically one of the major roads crossing the Appalachians, financed by the Virginia Board of Public Works in the 1830s. In modern times, west of Winchester, Virginia, U.S. Route 50 follows the path of the Northwestern Turnpike into West Virginia, whose major Corridor D project follows the western section of the original Northwestern Turnpike.
The National Register of Historic Places in the United States is a register including buildings, sites, structures, districts, and objects. The Register automatically includes all National Historic Landmarks as well as all historic areas administered by the U.S. National Park Service. Since its introduction in 1966, more than 90,000 separate listings have been added to the register.
The Great Indian Warpath (GIW)—also known as the Great Indian War and Trading Path, or the Seneca Trail—was that part of the network of trails in eastern North America developed and used by Native Americans which ran through the Great Appalachian Valley. The system of footpaths extended from what is now upper New York to deep within Alabama. Various Native peoples traded and made war along the trails, including the Catawba, numerous Algonquian tribes, the Cherokee, and the Iroquois Confederacy. The British traders' name for the route was derived from combining its name among the northeastern Algonquian tribes, Mishimayagat or "Great Trail", with that of the Shawnee and Delaware, Athawominee or "Path where they go armed".
Nemacolin's Trail, or less often Nemacolin's Path, was an ancient Native American trail that crossed the great barrier of the Allegheny Mountains via the Cumberland Narrows Mountain pass, connecting the watersheds of the Potomac River and the Monongahela River in the present-day United States of America. Nemacolin's Trail connected what are now Cumberland, Maryland and Brownsville, Pennsylvania.
U.S. Route 40 in the U.S. state of Maryland runs from Garrett County in Western Maryland to Cecil County in the state's northeastern corner. With a total length of 221 miles (356 km), it is the longest numbered highway in Maryland. Almost half of the road overlaps or parallels with Interstate 68 (I-68) or I-70, while the old alignment is generally known as US 40 Alternate, US 40 Scenic, or Maryland Route 144. West of Baltimore, in the Piedmont and Appalachian Mountains / Blue Ridge region of the Western Maryland panhandle of the small state, the portions where it does not overlap an Interstate highway are mostly two-lane roads. The portion northeast of Baltimore going toward Wilmington in northern Delaware and Philadelphia in southeastern Pennsylvania is a four-lane divided highway, known as the Pulaski Highway. This section crosses the Susquehanna River at the north end of the Chesapeake Bay on the Thomas J. Hatem Memorial Bridge.
U.S. Route 11 (US 11) is a part of the United States Numbered Highway System that runs from New Orleans, Louisiana, to Rouses Point, New York. In Maryland, the federal highway runs 12.83 miles (20.65 km) from the West Virginia state line at the Potomac River in Williamsport north to the Pennsylvania state line near Maugansville. US 11 is the primary north–south surface highway in central Washington County, connecting Hagerstown with Williamsport to the south and Hagerstown Regional Airport to the north. The federal highway was once a major long-distance highway, but that role has been assumed by Interstate 81 (I-81), which parallels US 11 not only in Maryland but for most of its course from Tennessee to Upstate New York. US 11 is maintained by the Maryland State Highway Administration except for the municipally-maintained portions within the corporate limits of Williamsport and Hagerstown.
U.S. Route 40 enters Pennsylvania at West Alexander. It closely parallels Interstate 70 (I-70) from West Virginia until it reaches Washington, where it follows Jefferson Avenue and Maiden Street.In Washington, US 40 passes to the south of Washington & Jefferson College. Following Maiden Street out of town, the road turns southeast toward the town of California. A short limited access highway in California and West Brownsville provides an approach to the Lane Bane Bridge across the Monongahela River. From here, the road continues southeast to Uniontown.
Interstate 70 (I-70) is a portion of the Interstate Highway System that runs from near Cove Fort, Utah, at a junction with I-15 to Baltimore, Maryland. It crosses the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia through Ohio County and the city of Wheeling. This segment is the shortest of all states through which I-70 passes, crossing West Virginia for only 14.45 miles (23.26 km). The Fort Henry Bridge carries I-70 from Wheeling Island across the Ohio River and into downtown Wheeling before the freeway enters the Wheeling Tunnel. I-470, a southerly bypass of Wheeling and the lone auxiliary Interstate Highway in West Virginia, is intersected near Elm Grove. Before crossing into Pennsylvania, I-70 passes The Highlands, a major shopping center in the panhandle, and the Bear Rocks Lake Wildlife Management Area. On average, between 27,000 and 53,000 vehicles use the freeway every day.
U.S. Route 40 Alternate is the U.S. Highway designation for a former segment of U.S. Route 40 (US 40) through Garrett and Allegany counties in Maryland. The highway begins at US 40 near exit 14 on Interstate 68 (I-68) and runs 31.80 miles (51.18 km) eastward to Cumberland, where it ends at exit 44 on I-68. Alt US 40 is maintained by the Maryland State Highway Administration (MDSHA).
The "Old National Pike Milestones" marked each mile of the old National Road in Maryland, an eastern coastal state of the United States, from its dominating city of Baltimore to major towns of western Maryland, as Frederick, and between it and Hagerstown, to Hancock, through to Cumberland in the western panhandle of the state in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The surviving stones have been included in the "National Register of Historic Places", maintained by the National Park Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior, and may be seen along the route variously designated as U.S. Route 40, Maryland Route 144, Alternate U.S. Route 40, and several other roads that trace the path of the original "Old National Pike". From Baltimore to Cumberland, the road was surveyed and laid out with construction in several phases over different periods of time by several turnpike companies, chartered by the General Assembly of Maryland beginning in 1808. Earlier in 1806, the United States Congress with the approval of third President Thomas Jefferson, authorized the surveying and further construction of a "national road" to continue on from Cumberland on the upstream of the Potomac River further to the west across additional mountainous ranges in the Allegheny Mountains to the newly admitted State of Ohio. Later the congressional action was amended to direct the road to the state boundaries on the Ohio River and it eventually landed at Wheeling, West Virginia. In later decades, the road was extended west across Ohio, Indiana and into the Illinois Country, to eventually terminate by the 1840s in Vandalia, the territorial capital of Illinois, just east of the Mississippi River, and northeast of the newly emergent, frontier river port metropolis of St. Louis of the Missouri Territory and the former Louisiana Purchase of 1803 to the west.
The Appalachian region has always had to allocate much resources and time into transportation due to the region's notable and unique geography. Mountainous terrain and commonly occurring adverse weather effects such as heavy fog and snowfall made roads hazardous and taxing on the traveling vehicles. Initially, European settlers found gaps in the mountains, among them the Cumberland Gap and the Wilderness Road. Another notable challenge of Appalachian travel is the political elements of constructing transportation routes. Most travel systems are funded by municipalities, but since The Appalachian area has several different states it can be difficult for the various governments to agree on how to work on transportation. The most influential forms of travel in the Appalachian region are based on water trading routes, roads and railroads.
U.S. Route 40 Alternate (US 40 Alternate) is an alternate route of US 40 in the U.S. state of Maryland. The highway runs 22.97 miles (36.97 km) from Potomac Street in Hagerstown east to US 40 in Frederick. US 40 Alternate parallels US 40 and much of Interstate 70 (I-70) to the south through eastern Washington County and western Frederick County. The alternate route connects Hagerstown and Frederick with Funkstown, Boonsboro, Middletown, and Braddock Heights. US 40 Alternate crosses two major north–south components of the Blue Ridge Mountains that separate the Great Appalachian Valley and the Piedmont: South Mountain between Boonsboro and Middletown and Catoctin Mountain, which is locally known as Braddock Mountain, at Braddock Heights.
Blair Gap, one of the gaps of the Allegheny, is a water gap along the eastern face atop the Allegheny Front escarpment. Like other gaps of the Allegheny, the slopes of Blair Gap were amenable to foot travel, pack mules, and possibly wagons allowing Amerindians, and then, after about 1778-1780 settlers, to travel west into the relatively depopulated Ohio Country decades before the railroads were born and tied the country together with steel.
The gaps of the Allegheny, meaning gaps in the Allegheny Ridge in west-central Pennsylvania, is a series of escarpment eroding water gaps along the saddle between two higher barrier ridge-lines in the eastern face atop the Allegheny Ridge or Allegheny Front escarpment. The front extends south through Western Maryland and forms much of the border between Virginia and West Virginia, in part explaining the difference in cultures between those two post-Civil War states. While not totally impenetrable to daring and energetic travelers on foot, passing the front outside of the water gaps with even sure footed mules was nearly impossible without navigating terrain where climbing was necessary on slopes even burros would find extremely difficult.
The unincorporated hamlet of Malden is a bedroom community along the historic 'Old National Pike' (1811) within borough of Centerville Washington County, Pennsylvania. Malden was a historical wagon stop amidst farms during the early 19th century surge of westward migration to settle the Northwest Territory after 1790.
