The National Road

Timed for America’s 250th anniversary, The National Road is the story of a new republic forging unity through ambition and action, driven by George Washington’s youthful dream to build the nation’s first highway west.

The National Road is the first narrative history of the federal project—begun decades before the nation itself was born and ranging through the 1830s—that connected the United States across the Alleghenies and into the western frontier. Starting with a young Washington’s dream of uniting the Potomac and Ohio Rivers, historian Brady J. Crytzer recounts the political debates, personal rivalries, and engineering marvels that culminated in an artery that brought settlers, ideas, and commerce into the American interior.

Washington scouted the western frontier as a surveyor and championed a route to unify the fledgling republic. Albert Gallatin, America’s longest tenured secretary of the treasury, battled political opposition to fund the project. Thomas Jefferson, torn between his agrarian ideals and the demands of a growing republic, ultimately championed the road as a means of securing western lands and extending democratic reach. And Henry Clay harnessed the road to advance his bold American System.

Filled with visionaries, rebels, and everyday families seeking the American dream, and featuring congressional showdowns and backroom deals to mountain crossings and boisterous frontier towns, The National Road reveals the triumphs and tragedies of an infrastructure saga that helped define the United States.