Controversy raged over proposals to extend the road to the
farthest West, to provide its upkeep by a system of tolls, and to
build similar highways farther north and south. But for a time
constitutional and legal difficulties were swept aside and
construction continued. Columbus was reached in 1833,
Indianapolis about 1840; and the roadway was graded to Vandalia,
then the capital of Illinois, and marked out to Jefferson City,
Missouri, although it was never completed to the last-mentioned
point by federal authority. When one reads that the original cost
of construction mounted to $10,000 a mile in central
Pennsylvania, and even $13,000 a mile in the neighborhood of
Wheeling, one's suspicion is aroused that public contracts were
not less dubious a hundred years ago than they have been known to
be in our own time.
The National Road has long since lost its importance as the great
connecting link of East and West. But in its day, especially
before 1860, it was a teeming thoroughfare. Its course was lined
with hospitable farmhouses and was dotted with fast-growing
villages and towns.
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