Jump to content
American Road Magazine
Celebrating our two-lane highways of yesteryear…And the joys of driving them today!

The National Road In Ohio


Recommended Posts

I'm back from my trip across Ohio! Photos and writeups to follow. Highlights:

 

- The bridges at Blaine. The 1830 stone bridge next to the 1930s (?) concrete arch bridge -- very cool, and hard to get a bad photo of them together.

- Various segments of brick road east of Zanesville. Peacock Road is celebrated, but I actually liked the brick section west of Norwich best. Good rumbly brick.

- Left-behind scraps of the 1914 concrete highway between Zanesville and Hebron.

- Cambridge, Zanesville, Columbus, and Springfield.

 

The road west of Springfield gets less and less interesting the closer you get to Indiana. It's just a straight shot, except for the flood-control reroutings north of Dayton. Past those two reroutings, it's a stick-straight two-lane with one (1) tiny old alignment right at the Indiana line. But i was pretty tired by the time I got to these, on day 3, so it was all for the best.

 

jim

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm back from my trip across Ohio! Photos and writeups to follow. Highlights:

 

- The bridges at Blaine. The 1830 stone bridge next to the 1930s (?) concrete arch bridge -- very cool, and hard to get a bad photo of them together.

- Various segments of brick road east of Zanesville. Peacock Road is celebrated, but I actually liked the brick section west of Norwich best. Good rumbly brick.

- Left-behind scraps of the 1914 concrete highway between Zanesville and Hebron.

- Cambridge, Zanesville, Columbus, and Springfield.

 

The road west of Springfield gets less and less interesting the closer you get to Indiana. It's just a straight shot, except for the flood-control reroutings north of Dayton. Past those two reroutings, it's a stick-straight two-lane with one (1) tiny old alignment right at the Indiana line. But i was pretty tired by the time I got to these, on day 3, so it was all for the best.

 

jim

 

Jim,

 

Welcome back! Will photos follow?

 

Dave

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That explains the "Hoosier Survives Trip Across State" headlines on all the major Ohio newspapers :rolleyes: . Glad you had good weather and cooperative cross traffic and hope you'll return to our chunk of America someday.

 

The stone bridge at Blaine is from 1828 and the concrete bridge beside it is from 1933. When the foliage is absent, you can sort of see the I-70 bridge even higher up. Even with foliage, you can see semi-trucks -- at least the brightly colored ones -- on the interstate.

 

From Zanesville west, there were no existing roads or trails to incorporate into the NR so it could start being the straight connector the government wanted. Federal money dried up at Springfield, long "the town at the end of the pike", and things got even straighter and sparser.

 

I'm definitely looking forward to your pictures and comments.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I didn't know that federal bucks petered out at Springfield -- that really explains a lot. The road past there is at least a pleasant enough drive, but there was so very little to stop and see.

 

I had the most fun from Wheeling to Zanesville. You know I love old pavement, so driving over the old brick and concrete was a real thrill for me. I also loved all the stone bridges on the old alignments.

 

Photos will come. I was way behind on uploading photos to Flickr -- just finished uploading nearly 800 photos I took at a muscle car auction two weeks ago. Gotta blog about that and then I start uploading NR Ohio photos and blogging about that.

 

jim

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Jim,

 

Sounds like you had an awesome time.

 

What muscle car auction did you attend?

 

 

 

Cort | 37.m.IL.pigValve.pacemaker | 5 Monte Carlos + 1 Caprice Classic | * CruiseNites_2011_Chi.IL *

MCs.CC + CHD.models.HO.legos.RadioShows + RoadTrips.us66 = http://www.chevyasylum.com/cort

"Gonna make some dreams come true" __ Hoyt Axton __ 'Della & the Dealer'

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...