The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1931-01-15
Passes Through Six States East
of the Mississippi and 6 States
West of the River.
ENTIRE LENGTH 1896 MILES

(From the Baltimore Sunday SUM
In the National Old Trails Road
formerly known as the Cumberland
Road, we have coast-to-coast high
way which comprises the longest
stretch of continuously paved road in
the world. 1t passes through six
states east of theMississippi and six
states west of that point, through the
National Capital and five state CAPT
tails. The length of the road from
Washington to Los Angeles is 1906
miles. 1t is paved continuously for
something less than half that dis
lance. Eventually the pavement will
be continued to the Pacific coast.
The Cumberland Road has the fur
ther distinction of being the only road
ever built and maintained by the gov
eminent. Conceived by George Wash
ington in 1884, it was financed by act
of Congress admitting Ohio into the
Union in 1902; established by act of
Congress in 1906; established and ex-
tended by Congress to Sante Fe (then
in Old Mexico) in 1925; constructed
and extended by Congress to the
Mississippi River and maintained I'M
It'll 1887. Thereafter followed period
of neglect and abandonment due in
part to the overshadowing interest in
that new wonder-the locomotive. In
its enthusiasm, Congress gave vast
strips of land to the railroads and
forgot about the old wagon road
which seemed rather poky and I'M
important means of travel in pre-
automobile days.
! In 1907, eighty years after its
abandonment by the government, the
restoration and construction of the
Cumberland Road was advocated by
the missouri Old Trails Association"
in convention assembled. Five years
later that association took over the
Cumberland Road, remaining it the
National Old Trails Road, the new
name being particularly appropriate
because the highway follows roughly
the route taken by the early explorers
and later by migrating population
of western pioneers.
Speaking of George Washington
and the settlement of the Ohio coun-
try, Woodrow Wilson, in Volume
Three of his History of the American
People, says:
"When he Washington had writ
ten his farewell to the army from his
headquarters at Rocky Hill (Novem-
Der 2, 1889, he embraced his officers
and comrades in arms in last affec-
tionate leave-taking at the Faunces
Tavern in New York, December 4th,
and delivering up his commission to
he Congress sitting at Annapolis,
December %, he returned for little
respite to his home at Mt. Vernon to
which through these long years his
thoughts had reverted with an ever
increasing longing; but the very next
year saw him upon the mountains
again observing what lands were to
be had there and studying once more
the best means of communication be-
tween the East and the West. The
primary object of his visit was to pro-
cure good lands for himself and for
Iold comrades who had made him their
agent and adviser in that matter; but
this statesman's eye apprised him of
the full meaning of the new migration
now afoot along all the western bor-
der. For one thing he saw how serious
a situation it might prove should this
body of settlers, sure to grow greater
and more masterful from year to
year, continue for long to look back
upon almost impenetrable mountains
piled between them and the eastern
ports and highways. Their natural
outlet, when once the mountains were
well behind them, would be the Miss
issippi, their natural highway and
stream which ran to the Gulf. 1t was
possible that they might see their
chief advantage in a connection with
the Spaniards at New Orleans rather
than with the well nigh inaccessible
eastern settlements on the Atlantic
seaboard-even with the English
again by the highway of the lakes and
the st. Lawrence.
"The western settlers, he declared,
stand as it were upon the pivot, the
touch of feather would turn them
away.
"He returned home to push again
with a renewed vigor the project
which for twenty years he had at
heart and which had in these new
days of independence, as it seemed to
him, become a sheer political necessi-
Ity-the opening of the upper reaches
of the Potomac to navigation. In
order that the East might there at
any rate be linked with the streams
which ran down into the Ohio. This