Down the Road

Photographs and stories by Jim Grey

Tag: Ohio

  • The disrupted National Road in Ohio

    For miles in Ohio, the old National Road emerges from underneath I-70 here and there.

  • Then there was the time I-70 jumped out in front of my car

    And then there was the time I-70 jumped out in front of my car. It was harrowing.

  • Bricks and bridges, on the National Road at Blaine, Ohio

    By American standards, the National Road in eastern Ohio is pretty darned old. It was extended west from Wheeling starting in the late 1820s, largely routed over the 1796-97 Zane’s Trace, which was based on even older American Indian trails. None of those trailblazers and roadbuilders had the equipment and technology to do anything but follow…

  • Saying goodbye to the old bridge at Bridgeport, Ohio on the National Road

    Wheeling, West Virginia, is well known for its suspension bridge that carried the National Road across the Ohio River. It delivers westbound travelers onto Wheeling Island, and from there they must cross the Ohio River’s backchannel to finally enter Ohio at the little town of Bridgeport. That, of course, involves another bridge. This map shows…

  • Clinching the National Road

    We roadfans say we’ve “clinched” a road when we’ve driven it end to end. Some roads are easier to clinch than others. I clinched the Michigan Road here in Indiana over several trips one summer a few years ago, but I never had to leave the state to do it. The National Road (the nation’s first…

  • Marking the Indiana-Ohio state line

    I usually photograph state lines on my road trips. As I began to explore US 50 across Indiana I was hoping to capture a Welcome to Indiana sign as the road crossed in from Ohio. What I found was far better than any old sign. This sandstone monument is right on the state line. Back…

  • The end of the Dayton Cutoff

    My road-loving colleague Denny Gibson tells the story best, but when the National Road was laid out across Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, the Federal Government mandated that the highway be laid out as straight as possible between the three states’ capitals. That meant that the road would not pass through the Ohio towns of Eaton…

  • And so ended our vacation

    This was an ugly way to end our trip. After crossing the Wheeling Suspension Bridge onto Wheeling Island, we crossed the little bridge into Ohio and then socko. Time seemed to slow down during the accident. I could see that the green Saturn wagon was going to hit us. I even had time to think,…