Wheeling: Celebrating 250 Years
National Road Puts City on Map
TOP: At left, a toll house along National Road in Wheeling. Right, traffic on National Road where it climbs Wheeling Hill. BELOW: An unobstructed view of the S Bridge along National Road as it enters Wheeling from Triadelphia.
Wheeling’s prominence as a city grew in the 1820s with the completion of the National Road, opening a new path to the west. Congress authorized construction of the road from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling in 1806. It served as the first federally funded highway, and provided a new route over the Appalachian Mountains. President Thomas Jefferson appointed a commission to oversee the surveying of the new route in 1802 for what is now termed “America’s first interstate highway.” Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin oversaw financing of the road, and workers consisting of Irish and English immigrants started work in 1811. According to the West Virginia Encyclopedia, mail service to Wheeling began in 1818, a few years before construction was complete. The cost to build the 131-mile route was $1.7 million. According to the West Virginia Encyclopedia, “Officially designated as the Cumberland Road, the highway crossed the rugged mountains of western Maryland before leveling out and taking a general northwesterly course through the
Pennsylvania countryside to Ohio County, (West) Virginia. Following the valley of Wheeling Creek, it passed Roney’s Point, Triadelphia, and Elm Grove to its western terminus on the Ohio River. Wheeling’s strategic position at the confluence of river and road led to its rapid growth as a major inland port for goods and passengers moving between the east and west. A river ferry connected Wheeling with Zane’s Trace, an important post road across southern Ohio to Limestone (now Maysville), Kentucky. Part of the trace later became incorporated into the western extension of the National Road laid out and built in the 1820s–30s through Ohio and Indiana to Vandalia, Illinois. “Heavy freight wagons and livestock clogged the highway and rapidly destroyed the roadbed east of Wheeling. Project management passed to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1825 as federal interest in the highway lagged in light of decreasing appropriations and increasing competition from railroads and canals.” Please See MAP, Page 14
Supplement To The SUNDAY NEWS-REGISTER - Wheeling, W.Va. - Sunday, June 30, 2019 - 13