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Article: Roads
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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ROADS
ROADS.
Except for a brief spurt of road building around 1800, the continental United States was extended from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific without the benefit of good roads. The United States had few roads prior to the twentieth century, and most were of poor quality. In towns, most roads were unpaved until the late nineteenth century, and in rural areas most roads were little more than dirt paths into the twentieth century. Federal programs during the 1910s and again during the 1950s eventually provided the United States with adequate roads for motor vehicles.
Roads in Towns Before 1900
On maps, towns in colonial America and the newly independent nation appeared to have ...