Daniel Boone opened a trail through the Appalachian Mtns.

Known as the Wilderness Road.

Before long, some western territories had population large enough to apply for statehood.

Kentucky 1792

Tennessee 1796

Ohio 1803

Louisiana 1812

Indiana 1816

Mississippi 1817

Illinois 1818

Alabama 1819

Private companies built the first major roads in the U.S.

Companies collected money to pay for the roads

1

1795 - The Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Road

339.1

The road's construction marked the beginning of organized road improvement following the American Revolution.

The road opened the territory northwest of the Ohio River and provided cheap transportation between the coast cities and the new Republic's "bread basket" region surrounding Lancaster.

By 1843, railroads and canals drove stagecoach and Conestoga wagon companies into a drastic decline.

If the ground was soft and squelchy, short sawn logs could be laid transversely across a road bed. The resulting pattern of logs looked like the ribs in corduroy fabric, hence its name.

2

3

Congress first financed road and ran from Maryland into Illinois

•Revolutionized travel in the West

•Gave farmers and merchants a cheap means of moving goods

4

Development of the Steamboat John Fitch showed how a steam engine

could power a boat. He opened a ferry service on the Delaware River, but few people used it, and he went out of business.

Robert Fulton launched his own steamboat, the Clermont, on the Hudson River. It carried passengers from New York City to Albany in record time.

Soon, steamboats were carrying passengers up and down the Atlantic coast. Steamboats carried passengers and goods on the Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri rivers.

Henry Shreve designed a flat-bottomed steamboat for shallow western rivers.

Canals Improved TransportationCanals Improved Transportation5

Farmers sent goods by canals from west to the east

5

6

Artificial channel filled with water that allows boats to cross a stetch of land, from Buffalo to Albany

7

1) Shipping goods dropped to 1/10th of its original cost

2) Made New York City a center of commerce

3) Led to other states to build canals

76

Robert Fulton’s steamboat aided the economic development of the United States by —

 

 

 

F reducing traffic in the nation’s ocean harbors

G making transportation on rivers more efficient

H ending American dependence on European shipping

J serving as a method of connecting California and the East Coast