Moving Goods on the National Road

Moving Goods on the National Road. The Historic National Road - The Road That Built The Nation.

“Open a wide door, and make a smooth way for the produce of that Country to pass to our Markets.” George Washington, 1784

, America’s founders looked west for the future success of the new country. The United States needed good roads and canals to open up frontier settlements. Baltimore was one of the first eastern cities to build a “smooth way” to the interior. Soon after 1800, this “Great Western Turnpike” became the first leg of a National Road that eventually reached St. Louis., By the mid 1830s, western farmers were shipping their crops and goods to Baltimore on the National Road. There, local merchants used the growing port of Baltimore to reach a world market. The result was a revolution in “community-based” agriculture that soon became national and international. Livestock, grains, fruits and vegetables were linked to customers by an ever improving transportation system. Freight wagons were followed by the railroad, then the automobile. Today’s ever present eighteen-wheeled trucks are direct descendants of the Conestoga Wagons pulled by six-horse teams on the old National Road., [Caption:] , Local farmer Thomas Selby is seen here in front of a 24-45 Case Tractor in 1954. In order to avoid the expense of having to buy their own equipment farmers often hired custom threshers at harvest time. This 1926 tractor was used until 1958 by Mr. Edward R. Frank, Sr., who traveled to farms throughout Howard County, including this one, to thresh grain for farmers.