The Old Roads

Travel the modern highways of the mid-Atlantic states today and you're surely traveling a route with a long history. 

 Native American Roads; traveled for 12,000 years.

Just to highlight two of the native roads:

Catawba Trail

This mountain road connected natives from the Carolina's with those to the north and west, in what are now the states of Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Ohio.

Occaneechi Path, The Great Trading Path

This system of footpaths between the villages of the piedmont plateau got several upgrades. First, the footpath became a horse trail as the Sioux began establishing trade with European settlers in Virginia. The Sioux traded skins and furs for tools, woven cloth, blankets, and weapons. In the next hundred years Europeans settled the piedmont and the road was upgraded to a wagon road. 

Colonial Roads; connecting the English colonies.

1650's The King's Highway

King Charles II ordered a road built to connect the colonies in the 'New World'. Built from 1650 to 1735, it stretched 1,300 miles beginning in Boston and heading south to Charleston. This connected two extremely important ports by land. (Important to the aid of English trade, which was the true purpose of the colonies.) Other towns along the road also benefited from the infrastructure improvement.  Today, if you want to travel the route of the old road highway 17 along the mid-Atlantic coast follows along the route from Virginia south. There are many historic places to visit along the way and of course some of North America's best beaches. I'm sure there are other spots to see the actual old road, but I walked part of its route in Little River South Carolina. Click HERE to read about that trip.

1750's The Fall Line Road

This road split off of the King's Highway in Fredericksburg, Virginia and headed south along the mid-Atlantic fall line, all the way to Augusta, Georgia. The fall line is an elevation change between coastal plane and piedmont plateau where rivers often have rapids and falls making them impassible by water past that point. Click HERE for more about the geology of the area. Today US highway 1 travels this route.

The Upper Road

This road paralleled the Fall Line road but to the west, and is the only one of the colonial roads which does not have a current road following its path.

The Great Wagon Road

Formerly the Native American road called the Warrior's Path. The Great Wagon Road ran from Pennsylvania to coast of Georgia.

Early American Roads, a work in progress.

1850's The Plank Roads

The longest of these roads stretched from Fayetteville to Winston. 129 miles.

The Cape Fear River was an extremely important access point for trade in North Carolina. The river was navigable from its mouth at the Atlantic up to its headwaters near Fayetteville. The town was intended to be a hub for transportation and shipping because of its proximity to the Cape Fear. (Click HERE for more on the Cape Fear.) In the 1850's roads were being built all over the state as part of an infrastructure project supported by the Whig party. As many as 500 plank roads were constructed. 

1900's Driving Dangerously

By the turn of the century cars were sharing the roads with wagons, horseback riders, and those walking, with no speed limits or stop signs or rules of any kind. With the boom of the industrial revolution there was need for more roads than ever to transport workers and goods in and out of cities.

Macadam Roads

After the Civil War the south had its version of the dark ages, not much in he way of improvement happened for some time. The plank roads fell into disrepair, the dirt roads were deeply rutted, subject to washouts, and not really suitable for travel in early automobiles. After 20 years the road system needed to be repaired. In the 1880's macadam roads began to be built. By 1912 NC had 1,232 miles of macadam roads. However, the roads were expensive to produce and by the Great Depression there was just a few hundred miles left. Most roads were hard packed clay or sand.

Asphalt and the modern Highway system

After WWII the boom years saw investment in all types of infrastructure. Roads were paved with asphalt. The federal government created the highway act and black top stretched from shore to shore.