Old State Road: Pennsylvania's First Road to the Northwest

You are crossing what was once Pennsylvania's first road to the northwest frontier. Built in the early eighteen hundreds, the Old State Road is said to have followed much of the Chinklacamoose Path, an Indigenous trail that generations of Lenape and other peoples had worn through these central Pennsylvania hills before European settlers arrived. The road connected the settled east to the raw frontier around what is now Clearfield County, cutting through forests that had seen no wheeled traffic before.

During the War of eighteen twelve, the route gained military importance: troops were reportedly moved over it toward Erie on Lake Erie, hurrying to reinforce American positions on the Great Lakes frontier. This section of highway you're on now crosses its route. The road itself was eventually superseded by turnpikes, canals, and railroads, but for a few critical decades it was the thread that tied Pennsylvania's settled valleys to the wilderness beyond the Alleghenies.