The Old Pike: A History of the National Road, with Incidents, Accidents, and Anecdotes Thereon

Before interstates and railroads, there was the National Road, the first highway built entirely by the federal government, stretching from Cumberland, Maryland into the wilds of Illinois. Thomas B. Searight, writing in 1894 with the intimacy of someone who lived alongside this legendary route, captures not just the engineering feats and political battles that created America's first great artery, but the unforgettable characters who traveled it: drifters, merchants, con artists, and pioneers chasing westward dreams. Searight debunks the myths that accrued around the road like dust on a covered wagon while serving up the incidents and anecdotes that make history breathe, fights, floods, broken axles, and the peculiar personalities who kept the Pike alive. For anyone curious about the infrastructure that moved a young nation, this is a window into an America that disappeared when the railroads arrived in 1852 and rendered the Pike a nostalgic memory. Searight writes with the affection of a local historian and the eye of someone who knew that the real story was always the people on the road, not the road itself.