Where the National and Michigan Roads Crossed

This stone obelisk marks one of the most important crossroads in early Indiana. Here the National Road, the great federally funded highway pushing west out of Maryland, crossed the Michigan Road, the state's own ambitious route running from the Ohio River clear up to Lake Michigan. In the eighteen thirties and eighteen forties, these two roads were the arteries that carried settlers, mail, livestock, and freight into a young frontier state.

The Michigan Road was largely paid for with land ceded by the Potawatomi, a reminder of who was displaced to build it. The Daughters of the American Revolution placed this marker, and its inscription reads, over these roads came many of the pioneers, who, by their courage and industry, founded the great commonwealth of Indiana. The monument was later restored for the state's bicentennial.