ture, in 1831, passed an act which authorized the State to take jurisdiction of its portion of the road and place it under toll as each section was completed,[1] but the road was never fully completed in either Indiana or Illinois. Congress finally ceded all the Federal interests in the road to Indiana and Illinois in 1848 and 1856, respectively.[2]
A section of I-70 in Spotted Wolf Canyon between Rattlesnake Bend and Saleraters west of Green River, Utah.
From the early 1800’s through the 1860’s, a separate form of federally funded road construction existed in the building of primitive military wagon roads, most of them in the territories. They consisted mainly of little more than trails built by troops, but they did play a big part in opening up the West. Late in this period, the Army improved some of the more important wagon trails to the point that they were used for transcontinental mail routes.
Junction of the old National Road (right) and the relocated U.S. 40 (left) near Piney Grove, Md.
The last form of Federal road assistance or subsidy in the 19th century was the granting of a free right-of-way for public roads over unreserved public lands. A number of States and counties took advantage of this by declaring all section lines in those counties to be public roads, and, thus, they reserved the right-of-way before the lands might become private property.[3]
No reasonably accurate determination can be made of the total amount of Federal funds that were expended directly and indirectly for roads during the period from 1776 to about 1890 because the programs had been so very diffuse. However, in terms of actual appropriations by Congress, the Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture, 1899 mentions that from 1806 to 1838 a total of about $7 million was appropriated by Congress for the Cumberland Road and $1.6 million was appropriated for “. . . twelve other great national highways . . . making what was then regarded a complete system of roads. . . .” Large Government expenditures were then curtailed because of a monetary crisis, but from 1854 until the Civil War, over $1.6 million was appropriated for roads chiefly in the Territories.[4]
There was little further Federal interest or recognition of responsibility concerning roads until the Good Roads Movement began to reach national proportions about 1890. This movement had a profound influence on the States in their initiation of State aid for roads
