Historic National Road - Illinois

Historic National Road - Illinois

Parks Directory of the United States / National Scenic Byways

Address: c/o National Road Association of Illinois
800 East Industrial Dr
Toledo, IL 62468
Phone: 217-849-3188;
Web: www.nationalroad.org Description: America's first interstate highway, the National Road was built to to link the people and cities along the Eastern seaboard to those on the frontiers west of the Allegheny Mountains. Authorized by Congress in 1806, construction of the road began in Cumberland, Maryland in 1811. The road reached Vandalia, then the Illinois state capitol, in 1839 and later was completed to the Illinois border at East Saint Louis, opening a link to the water route of the Mississippi. Point of interest along the Illinois section of the route include Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, Franciscan Monastery Museum, and Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site. The Eads Bridge, located on the western terminus of the National Road on the Mississippi River was built by the self-taught engineer, James Buchanan Eads. Completed in 1874, it was the the first bridge to span the Mississippi River and is still in use today.
Legth: 165 miles (Illinois); 824 miles (entire route). Start/Endpoint: The east/west route runs from Baltimore, Maryland, to the Mississippi River at the Eads Bridge in East Saint Louis, Illinois. It crosses six states: Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The Illinois section of the byway runs along US 40, following the original route surveyed in 1828, beginning at the Indiana state line near Terre Haute. Designation/Year: All-American Road (2002).

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See other parks in Illinois.