Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike: America's First Major Toll Road

You are traveling near the route of the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike, the first major toll road in the United States. Incorporated in seventeen ninety-two by the Pennsylvania state legislature, the privately built stone-and-gravel road stretched sixty-two miles and opened to traffic within a few years. Contemporary observers called it the finest highway of its day.

The thirty-fifth milestone out of Philadelphia was placed near this spot. The turnpike was a revelation: a smooth, maintained road that dramatically cut travel time between the state's two largest cities and set the template for American road construction. In the early twentieth century the state took over the route, and it was incorporated into the transcontinental Lincoln Highway, becoming what we now know as United States Route Thirty.

That road you are likely driving on today has roots stretching back more than two centuries.