06/18/2026
The Old National Road in Ohio:
"The act of 1825, authorizing the extension of the great road into the state of Ohio, was greeted with intense enthusiasm by the people of the west. The fear that the road would not be continued beyond the Ohio river was generally entertained, and for good reasons. The debate of constitutionality, which had been going on for several years, increased the fear. And yet it would have been breaking faith with the west by the National Government to have failed to continue the road.
The act appropriated $150,000 for an extension of the road from Wheeling to Zanesville, Ohio, and work was immediately undertaken. The Ohio was by far the greatest body of water which the road crossed, and for many years the passage from Wheeling to the opposite side of the Ohio, Bridgeport, was made a ferry. Later a great bridge, the admiration of the country side, was erected. The road entered Ohio in Belmont county, and, eventually, crossed the state in a due line west, not deviating its course even to touch cities of such importance as Newark or Dayton, although, in the case of the former at least, such a course would have been less expensive than the one pursued. Passing due west the road was built through Belmont, Guernsey, Muskingum, Licking, Franklin, Madison, Clark, Montgomery and Preble counties, a distance of over 300 miles. A larger portion of the National Road which was actually completed lay in Ohio than in all other states through which it passed combined...
The average cost per mile of the road in eastern Ohio was much less than the cost in Pennsylvania, averaging only about $3,400 per mile. This included three inch layers of broken stone, masonry bridges and culverts. Large appropriations were made for the road in succeeding years and the work went on from Zanesville, due west to Columbus. The course of the road between Zanesville and Columbus was perhaps the first instance where the road ignored, entirely, the general alignment of a previous road between the same two points. The old road between Zanesville and Columbus went by way of Newark and Granville, a roundabout course, but probably the most practicable, as any one may attest who has traveled over the National Road in the western part of Muskingum county...
The course between Zanesville and Columbus was located by the United States Commissioner, Jonathan Knight, Esq., who accompanied by his associates (one of whom was the youthful Joseph E. Johnson) arrived in Columbus, October 5, 1825. Bids for contracts for building the road from Zanesville to Columbus were advertised to be received at the Superintendent's office at Zanesville, from the 23rd to the 30th of June, 1829. The road was fully completed by 1833. The road entered Columbus on Friend (now Main) street. There was great rivalry between the North End and South End over the road's entrance into the city. The matter was compromised by having it enter on Friend street and take its exit on West Broad, traversing High to make the connection...
The preliminary survey westward was completed in 1826 and extended to Indianapolis, Indiana. Bids were advertised for contract west of Columbus in July 1830. During the next seven years the work was pushed on through Madison, Clark, Montgomery and Preble counties and across the Indiana line. Proposals for bids for building the road west of Springfield, Ohio, was advertised for, during August 1837, a condition being that the first eight miles be finished by January 1838."
-Archer Butler Hulbert, The Old National Road - the Historic Highway of America
