These Are The Oldest Highways In The U.S. Still Being Used Today

You might be an auto enthusiast who enjoys the blissful experience of driving or simply someone who loves spending their time behind the wheel while the white lines flash past. Nearly every driver knows that feeling of being on the open highway — that moment when the world narrows to the road ahead and the journey itself becomes the place you would like to be. And it isn’t just a matter of romanticizing old style driving. Because it seems, young people actually love driving just as much as older generations. The U.S. was practically built on that feeling. From the primary unpaved wagon trails to the graceful asphalt of recent expressways, our highways are greater than just infrastructure. They’re an inheritance of freedom.

With greater than 46,000 miles of asphalt arteries, the U.S. Interstate Highway System is one in all the most important highway networks on Earth. It literally moves the economy by linking cities, small towns, and coastlines, while also doubling as a national defense asset. Before its creation, American roads were a patchwork of rough, disconnected routes. That modified in 1956, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act, inspired by his grueling 1919 cross-country convoy and having seen the efficiency of Germany’s Autobahn system. The result was a standardized, high-speed highway grid that redefined how America drives, trades, and mobilizes.

And that is what makes the oldest of them special. They were built before America had borders on a map or uniform road signs. Some still cling to their original alignments, winding through the countryside and cities alike. Listed here are five of the oldest highways within the U.S. which might be still helping people chase the American Dream.

The Boston Post Road returns here because it isn’t just one in all the oldest roads within the U.S., it’s America’s first highway, the inspiration for the whole lot that followed. The Boston Post Road was America’s first real mail route, a colonial network that tied Boston to Latest York City in 1673. Built atop Native American trails that predated European settlement, it became the backbone of early communication and commerce. By the 1700s, post riders carried letters, including the Boston News-Letter, the nation’s first newspaper, along its rutted paths. In 1753, Benjamin Franklin, then Deputy Postmaster, traversed the road himself, installing mile markers to standardize postal rates. By 1783, it hosted America’s first long-distance stagecoach service, transforming from a humble courier trail right into a full-fledged highway that was faster, safer, and vital to a growing country.

Today, the bones of that Seventeenth-century route still live beneath the fashionable U.S. highway grid. When America began numbering its roads within the Twenties, two major alignments of the Boston Post Road were reborn as U.S. Route 1 and U.S. Route 20, while other stretches survive as U.S. Routes 5, 16, and 44. The Upper, Lower, and Middle Post Roads that were once colonial dirt tracks have now turn out to be a few of Latest England’s busiest arteries, carrying commuters, cargo, and weekend road-trippers along the identical path that after carried mail by horseback.

If you would like to return to the start of America’s love affair with highways, you’ve gotten to start out with the National Road –- the country’s first federal highway project. Construction began back in 1811 in Cumberland, Maryland, and by the mid 1800s, the road stretched all of the strategy to Vandalia, Illinois. People used it as a path to the frontier out West. Wagon trains and stagecoaches traveled it, as did a few of the very first automobile owners, and so they all rattled out West along its stone and dirt surfaces.

The National Road went by various names over time, including the Cumberland Road, the National Pike, and more. Because the western frontier began growing, it became the important thing crossroads for all commerce and settlement in the realm. Shops and taverns began popping up alongside it and before long, it had earned the nickname “The Predominant Street of America.” By the point 1912 got here around, the route had been absorbed into the National Old Trails Road, which just about gave it a brand new lease on life with the car boom of the Twenties. As cars began to switch wagons, the feds began putting some serious money into upgrading the road’s rough stone surface with smooth asphalt.

By 1926, what was left of the old National Road had officially been absorbed by U.S. Route 40, a road that began in Atlantic City, Latest Jersey and stretched all of the strategy to San Francisco, California. Even 2 hundred years on, it is probably not the most costly highway to drive on, however the National Road continues to be on the market, its old stones serving as a reminder that the country’s history moves one mile at a time.

Carl G Fisher was a automobile enthusiast and entrepreneur with a dream. He desired to see the day when Americans could hit the open road and travel on their very own terms. There was a little bit of an issue with that vision, though — lower than half of his proposed route of three,000 miles used roads that already existed, so engineers needed to create large stretches from scratch. The result included some pretty fancy infrastructure –- 40-foot wide, 10-inch thick slabs of concrete with banked curves and guardrails designed to let cars zip along at an exciting 35 mph. Thus, the Lincoln Highway was born and stitched together bits of older roads, just like the Lancaster Turnpike, Conestoga Road, and the Mormon Trail, to construct the primary real transcontinental highway engineered from the bottom up for cars.

When it opened, the “See America First” slogan became a little bit of a rallying cry. Before long, filling stations, motor courts, and roadside diners sprouted as much as cater to the brand new roadtrippers, and suddenly, travel became an adventure in its own right.The Lincoln Highway was finally accomplished in 1925, the identical yr that marked the top of the named-road era. Because of the brand new numbered highway system, chunk of the old Lincoln Highway was U.S. Route 30. 

In 1928 , concrete markers with a big “L” were put up nearly every mile along the route. Nonetheless, not lots of those markers survived. Come 2000, Pennsylvania’s Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor revived the spirit by putting up 150 latest markers, which still function a reminder that this was the place where the good American road trip was born.

Back in 1915, the Dixie Highway kicked off as this big, tangled network running from Chicago all the way in which right down to Miami. The entire idea was to attach the gritty North with the sun-soaked South. Carl G. Fisher, the identical guy who dreamed up the Lincoln Highway, got things rolling, and a wave of latest drivers jumped at the possibility to swap train rides for the liberty of their very own cars. Local governments and civic groups took on the work in their very own backyards, so the highway was a patchwork — some parts were smooth pavement, while others were just dirt roads tied together under the Dixie Highway name.

The Dixie Highway was Florida’s major artery for early tourism. Snowbirds flocked south, produce headed north, and towns along the road sprang to life with gas stations, motels, and quirky roadside stops hoping to catch the eyes of passing drivers. By the top of the Twenties, the Dixie Highway faded into the background as the brand new U.S. highway system took over. Today, U.S. 41, U.S. 25, and U.S. 1, amongst other others,make up what’s left of the Dixie. 

Many abandoned highways succumb to modern infrastructure. Nonetheless, when you drive through Georgia, Tennessee, or Florida, you may spot pieces of the old road. They’re narrow, two-lane stretches that feel like a time warp, filled with dust, sunshine, and the unmistakable smell of engines heating up under the Southern sky.

California’s Pacific Coast Highway or, as most wish to call it, PCH, doesn’t have centuries of history attached to it, nevertheless it’s got a spirit that feels infinite. The road got here together back in 1934, pieced from old coastal routes between Orange and Mendocino Counties, and have become the country’s most stunning drive. Constructing it was no small feat. In the course of the Depression, crews blasted through cliffs, snaked through canyons, and built bridges just like the Bixby Rainbow Bridge, which still stands proud in Big Sur.

The PCH stretches almost 700 miles, running up the state from south to north and weaving through spots like Los Angeles and San Francisco — it even crosses the Golden Gate Bridge. When you throw in U.S. Route 101, you get an almost unbroken path along the entire Pacific coastline.

The primary a part of the highway ran between Ventura and Santa Barbara, where wood causeways used to lift cars above the swampy lowlands. But the actual showstopper is the stretch between Big Sur, Carmel, and San Simeon, where Hearst Castle sits. That 74-mile section took engineers 18 years to carve out, with 33 bridges clinging to cliffs and winding around mountains. Sure, there are landslides and white-knuckle turns, but none of that stops adventurous drivers. Unlike probably the most congested highways within the country, the PCH continues to be top-of-the-line road trips you possibly can absorb America. It is a reminder that the ride itself could be just nearly as good as wherever you are headed.