Highway History Bibliography
Early American Roads and Turnpikes
The latest additions are in bold
Baker, Norman L., Braddock's Road: Mapping the British Expedition from Alexandria to the Monongahela, History Press, 2013. (Baker tells the story of the road that Major General Edward Braddock carved out of the wilderness in 1755 between Alexandria and the future site of Pittsburgh during the French and Indian War.)
Boyd, Mark F. "The First American Road in Florida: Pensacola-St. Augustine Highway, 1824, The Quarterly Periodical of the Florida Historical Society, October 1935, p/ 72-192.
Chidsey, Donald Barr, "The Old Boston Post Roads," National Geographic, August 1962.
Clark, Keith, and Tiller, Lowell, Terrible Trail: The Meek Cutoff, 1845, Maverick Publications, 1966 (revised edition, 1993). (A wrong turn in Oregon leads to disaster.)
Coates, Robert, The Outlaw Years: The History of the Land Pirates of the Natchez Trace, The Literary Guild of America, 1930.
Coleman, J. Winston, Jr., Stage-Coach Days in the Bluegrass: Being an Account of Stage-Coach Travel and Tavern Days in Lexington and Central Kentucky 1800-1900, Standard Press, 1935 (New edition, University Press of Kentucky, 1995).
Davis, William C., A Way Through the Wilderness: The Natchez Trace and the Civilization of the Southern Frontier, Harper Collins Publishers, 1995.
Dunbar, Seymour, A History of Travel in America, 4 Volumes, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1915. (Reprinted in 1 volume, Tudor Publishing Company, 1937)
Dunlop, M. H., Sixty Miles from Contentment: Traveling the Nineteenth Century American Interior, Basic Books, 1995. (What 19th century travel narratives reveal about America.)
Durrenberger, J. A., Turnpikes: A Study of the Toll Road Movement in the Middle Atlantic States and Maryland, Published by the Author, 1931.
Earle, Alice Morse, Stage-Coach and Tavern Days, The MacMillan Company, 1927.
Edwards, Agnes, The Old Coast Road: From Boston to Plymouth, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920.
Faulk, Odie B., Destiny Road: The Gila Trail and the Opening of the Southwest, Oxford University Press, 1973. (The story of the road through New Mexico, Arizona, and California that evolved into U.S. 80.)
Faulk, Odie B., The U.S. Camel Corps: An Army Experiment, Oxford University Press, 1976. (The story of the use of camels to build wagon roads, including portions of the road that became U.S. 66, through the Southwest in the 1850's.)
Hafen, LeRoy R. and Ann W., Old Spanish Trail: Santa Fé to Los Angeles, The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1954.
Hart, Val, The Story of American Roads, The Junior Literary Guild and William Sloane Associates, 1950.
Holifield, William, Difficulties Made Easy: History of the Turnpikes of Baltimore City and County, Baltimore County Historical Society, 1978.
Holmes, Oliver W., and Rohrback, Peter T., Stagecoach East: Stagecoach Days in the East from the Colonial Period to the Civil War, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983.
Hulbert, Archer Butler, Historic Highways of America (16 Volumes), The Arthur H. Clark Company, circa 1902-1903.
Hulbert, Archer Butler, The Old National Road-The Historic Highway of America, Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications, Volume IX, 1901.
Hulbert, Archer Butler, "The Indian Thoroughfares of Ohio", Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publications, Volume VIII, 1900
Hulbert, Archer Butler, Red Men's Roads: The Indian Thoroughfares of the Central West, Fred J. Heer Company, 1900.
Hunter, Robert F., "Turnpike Construction in Antebellum Virginia," Technology and Culture, Spring 1963.
Jackson, W. Turrentine, Wagon Roads West: A Study of Federal Road Surveys and Construction in the Trans-Mississippi West 1846-1869, Yale University Press, 1964.
Kaplan, Michael David, Otto Mears: Colorado's Transportation King, Ph.D., Thesis, University of Colorado, 1975. (The 19th century toll road king of Colorado.)
Karn, Edwin Daniel, Pre-Railroad Transportation in the Upper Mississippi Valley, Ph.D. Thesis, The University of Wisconsin, 1986.
Klein, Daniel and Majewski, John, "Economy, Community and Law: The Turnpike Movement in New York, 1797-1845, Law and Society Review, Vol. 26, No. 3, 1992, p. 469-512.
Lane, Wheaton J., From Indian Trail to Iron Horse: Travel and Transportation in New Jersey 1620-1860, Princeton University Press, 1939.
Lathrop, Elise, Early American Inns and Taverns, Robert M. McBride and Company, 1926 (New Edition, 1935, Tudor Publishing Company).
MacGill, Caroline E. (and a Staff of Collaborators), History of Transportation in the United States Before 1860, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1917.
Madsen, Betty M., and Madsen, Brigham D., North to Montana! Jehus, Bullwhackers, and Mule Skinners on the Montana Trail, University of Utah Press, 1980.
Marlowe, George F., Byroads of Old New England: Some Tales of Less-Known Persons and Places Along the Way, Exposition Press, 1954.
Marlowe, George F., Coaching Roads of Old New England: Their Inns and Taverns and Their Stories, The MacMillan Company, 1945
Marlowe, George F., The Old Bay Paths: Their Villages and Byways and Their Stories, Hastings House, 1942.
Mattes, Merrill J., The Great Platte River Road: The Covered Wagon Mainline Via Fort Kearny to Fort Laramie, University of Nebraska Press, 1987.
Moorhead, Max L., New Mexico's Royal Road: Trade and Travel on the Chihuahua Trail, University of Oklahoma Press, 1958.
Murray, Robert A., The Bozeman Trail: Highway of History, Pruett Publishing Company, 1988.
Newlon, Howard, Jr., "Private Sector Involvement in Virginia's Nineteenth Century Transportation Improvement Program," Paper for the International Conference on the Roles of Private Enterprise and Market Processes in the Financing and Provision of Roads, July 8-10, 1986 (Virginia Highway and Transportation Research Council).
Pawlett, Nathaniel Mason, "A Brief History of the Roads of Virginia 1607-1840," Virginia Highway and Research Council, October 1977.
Propst, Nell Brown, The South Platte Trail: Story of Colorado's Forgotten People, Pruett Publishing Company, 1989.
Quaife, Milo M., Chicago's Highways Old and New: From Indian Trail to Motor Road, D. F. Keller and Company, 1923.
Schwantes, Carlos Arnaldo, Long Day's Journey: The Steamboat and Stagecoach Era in the Northern West, University of Washington Press, 1999. (Next time you feel like complaining about air travel, check what long-distance travel was like not so long ago.)
Sells, John A., Stagecoaches: Across the American West 1850-1920, Hancock House, 2008. (As explained in the preface, this book describes the "short, significant story of the role of stagecoaches in the westward expansion of the United States." It has chapters on many of the stagecoach lines that crossed the West.)
Shank, William H., Three Hundred Years with the Pennsylvania Traveler, American Canal and Transportation Center, 1976.
Southerland, Henry DeLeon, Jr., and Brown, Jerry Elijah, The Federal Road Through Georgia, the Creek Nation, and Alabama, 1806-1836, The University of Alabama Press, 1989.
Sprague, Marshall, The Great Gates: The Story of the Rocky Mountain Passes, Little, Brown and Company, 1964.
Spring, Agnes Wright, The Cheyenne and Black Hills Stage and Express Routes, The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1949.
Taylor, George Rogers, The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860, Rinehart and Company, 1951.
Taylor, Philip E., The Turnpike Era in New England, Yale Ph.D., Thesis, 1934.
Waitley, Douglas, Roads of Destiny: The Trails That Shaped a Nation, Robert B. Luce, Inc., 1970.
Walker, Clifford J., Back Door to California: The Story of the Mojave River Trail, Mojave River Valley Museum Association, 1986.
Wallace, Paul A. W., "Historic Indian Paths of Pennsylvania," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography", October 1952.
Wayland, John W., The Valley Turnpike: Winchester to Staunton and Other Roads, Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society, 1967.
Whitman, Alice, "Transportation in Territorial Florida," The Florida Historical Quarterly, Volume 17, 1938, pages 25-53.
Wilcox, Frank N., Ohio Indian Trails, The Gates Press, 1933.
Winther, Oscar O., The Transportation Frontier: Trans-Mississippi West 1865-1890, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964.
Wood, Frederick J., The Turnpikes of New England and the Evolution of the Same Through England, Virginia, and Maryland, The Marshall Jones Company, 1919.
Young, Jeremiah Simeon, A Political and Constitutional Study of the Cumberland Road. (A Dissertation, University of Chicago Press, 1904.