U.S. Route 11 runs across a bridge over the Potomac River.
As you pass through Williamsport Park along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Towpath, you’ll travel under U.S. Route 11, a federal highway that zips through a sliver of Maryland as it crosses between Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The highway roughly parallels a section of a trading and war path stretching from upstate New York down to Georgia and Alabama. Actually a network of trails, they likely began as seasonal migratory routes that animals carved through the Appalachian woods. People later realized they were also optimal routes for hunting, trading and waging war. For centuries the paths connected the northeastern Iroquois Confederacy and Algonquian-speaking peoples like the Shawnee and Delaware to the southeastern Cherokee, Catawba and Creek. [1] With the arrival of European colonizers, this section of the path became part of the Great Wagon Road. Running from Philadelphia to the Carolinas, the road was traveled by German and Scotch-Irish migrants in search of land unclaimed by other Europeans. [2]
On May 30, 1901, the Shepherdstown Register ran a short paragraph in its “Little Locals” column—where they featured “The Things of Interest that are...
Located next to CSX Railroad, the Hagerstown Roundhouse Museum is devoted to educating the public about the city’s railroad history. Although the...
On the edge of Hagerstown City Park, the former residence of town founder Jonathan Hager is now a museum that pays tribute to Hagerstown’s early days....
The Great American Rail-Trail promises an all-new American experience. Through 12 states and the District of Columbia, the trail will directly serve nearly 50 million people within 50 miles of the route. Across the nation—and the world—only the limits of imagination will limit its use.
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