Pioneer Roads and
Experiences of Travelers
(Volume I)
CHAPTER I
THE EVOLUTION OF HIGHWAYS: FROM INDIAN TRAIL TO TURNPIKE
We have considered in this series of monographs the opening of a number of Historic Roads and the part they played in the development of the most important phases of early American history. But our attitude has been that of one asking, Why?—we have not at proper length considered all that would be contained in the question, How? It will be greatly to our purpose now to inquire into the methods of road-making, and outline, briefly, the evolution of the first trodden paths to the great highways of civilization.
From one aspect, and an instructive one, the question is one of width; few, if any, of our roads are longer than those old “threads of soil”—as Holland called the Indian trails; Braddock’s Road was not longer than the trail he followed; even the Cumberland Road could probably have been followed its entire length by a parallel Indian path or a buffalo trace. But Braddock’s Road was, in its day, a huge, broad track, twelve feet wide; and the Cumberland Road exceeded it in breadth nearly fifty feet. So our study may be pursued from the interesting standpoint of a widening vista; the belt of blue above our heads grows broader as we study the widening of the trail of the Indian.