Long about March I’ve been cooped up so long that I start to itch for my first spring road trip. The guys over at the American Road forum have been talking about the National Road a lot lately. One fellow there has started an ambitious online project to capture the road’s history. It has me coming out of my skin to hit the old alignments!
I won an eBay auction recently for a stack of little cards, printed in 1920, showing scenes from the National Road in Maryland and Pennsylvania. They reminded me of my trip last spring along the same route, and only made me want to get out on the road even more!
This card shows the Wilson Bridge, my favorite bridge on the Maryland portion of the road.
This bridge isn’t as white today, but she’s still a real beauty. I took the photo below from the shore at about the center of the card’s right edge.
The road has been rerouted several times over Polish Mountain since 1920. This is what it looked like then.
This is the view from the old road on Polish Mountain now. I-68 certainly wasn’t part of the view in 1920!
Maybe it was because Maryland was a tough act to follow, but I wasn’t very impressed with the views in Pennsylvania. This card makes me want to give that state a second chance.
You can check out all eight of these cards in my Flickr space.
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