Historic Highways of America

Volume 9: Waterways of Westward Expansion

A series of monographs on the History of America as portrayed in the evolution of its Highways of War, Commerce, and Social Expansion. Comprising the following volumes: Paths of the Mound-Building Indians and Great Game Animals. Indian Thoroughfares. Washington's Road: The First Chapter of the Old French War. Braddock's Road. The Old Glade (Forbes's) Road. Boone's Wilderness Road. Portage Paths: The Keys of the Continent. Military Roads of the Mississippi Basin. Waterways of Westward Expansion. The Cumberland Road. Pioneer Roads of America (two volumes). The Great American Canals (two volumes). The Future of Road-Making in America. In the study of Waterways of Westward Expansion, the Ohio River — the " Gateway of the West " — occupies such a commanding position that it must be considered most important and most typical. Such is its situation in our geography and history that it is entitled to a most prominent place among Historic Highways of America which greatly influenced the early westward extension of the borders and the people of the United States. Not until a late period in the expansion era — the day of steam navigation — did the Great Lakes rise to importance as highways of immigration, and south of the Ohio River Basin there was no westward waterway of importance. The day of the keel-boat and barge was of moment in the broadening of the American sphere of influence on this continent, and nowhere is the study of these ancient craft made to so good advantage as on the Ohio and its tributaries.