In the rugged terrain of eastern Ohio, 20th-century improvements to US 40 left plenty of old National Road alignments behind. One of them in Guernsey County is signed as Best Road.
There are two reasons I stopped to photograph Best Road. The first was that it towers over current US 40.
The road’s realignment cut out a pretty steep hill, making US 40 safer and faster. Here’s where the hill crests.
The second reason I stopped was this great old house. It dates to the 1870s and was originally home to Civil War veteran Oliver Barnett. It’s a “homegrown home” – the lumber used to build it came from trees on the property. Even the stone in its foundation was quarried here.
For this photo, I squatted down trying to get the tree branches to serve as kind of a frame for the scene. I couldn’t avoid having them block the roof, unfortunately!
Hidden gems like this are why I like to follow the old alignments!
I’ve driven the National Road from its beginning in Baltimore, MD to its end in Vandaila, IL. To read everything I’ve ever written about it, click here.
To get Down the Road in your inbox or reader six days a week, click here to subscribe!
To get my newsletter with previews of what I’m working on, click here to subscribe!
Oh, how I would like to see inside the house!
No kidding!
I love old parallel roads like that. And how amazing to learn that the home was built right out of the property itself. Talk about keeping the pioneer spirit. How did you ever find that out?
The Ohio National Road Association has a great guide to the road, from which I got this info. http://www.ohionationalroad.org/
Cool post. I never thought about it before, but I’ll bet a lot of old houses were homegrown. I mean, I always assumed they bought the lumber from a local mill or something, but that probably wasn’t practical, was it?
When you’re among the first to arrive in a place, yeah, you pretty much have to do everything yourself! There’s a homegrown house not far from where I live, within the Indianapolis city limits on the old Michigan Road. http://blog.jimgrey.net/2008/08/02/the-boardman-house/
Thousands of people drive by it every day and probably have no idea about its history.
I’m with Dani! Can’t imagine what the inside looks like! It amazes me the quality of skills and construction that causes a house like that to still be standing! It obviously has be well maintained over the decades. And will probably still stand for many more! Such a nice piece of property as well!
I searched the Internet for interior photos of this house, but came up empty. You’d better believe a lot of maintenance has gone into that house to keep it looking like that.
Wow, love that house! I suppose there were no tours?
It’s a private residence, so nope!
That house is amazing. Sadly, most of the historic houses in Tucson, especially downtown, were bulldozed for parking lots and offices. For a town that’s over 300 tears old, we have little sense of history, and once it’s lost…
There’s plenty of bulldozing going on here in the Midwest, too.
Also, interesting how Rand McNally almost killed you! That whole series is fascinating; I’ve always been intrigued by the road less traveled, and that was some cool architecture. Only in America, land of the forgotten town!
Thanks for clicking through and reading some of the long trip report! I waited for 20 years to return to the scene of my fright.