America's First Toll Road

America's oldest toll road, the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike in Pennsylvania, dates back to the birth of the nation. Chartered in 1792 and opened in 1795, it was not only the first road in America to be covered with a layer of crushed stone, but also widely considered to be the country's very first toll road. The Commonwealth did not have enough money to pay for the road's construction. It was privately built by the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Road Company for a total of $465,000. At the time it opened, it was 20 feet wide and ran 62 miles between Philadelphia and Lancaster. It fell into disrepair over the next fifty years but was restored after the invention of the automobile.

Why the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Was Built

Roads already connected Philadelphia with surrounding communities long before the turnpike appeared. Colonists laid out a network of public roads radiating out of Philadelphia, including the Queen's Road toward Chester in 1706 and the Old York Road toward New Hope in 1711. Work on a King's Highway connecting Philadelphia and Lancaster began in 1733. Those roads were useful, but carrying heavy freight over them could be miserable. Dirt surfaces became deeply rutted and muddy, and a growing volume of agricultural wagons moved over the route between Lancaster County and Philadelphia each season, more than the old surface could handle.

Pennsylvania officials considered improving the road after the Revolution. In 1790 and 1791, the legislature appointed commissioners to survey the route. The commissioners concluded that a durable road built with stone and gravel would be too expensive for the state to undertake entirely as a public project. Private investors, however, appeared willing to finance one if they could collect tolls.

The legislature responded on April 9, 1792, by authorizing the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Road Company. Investors subscribed for shares in the new company, and construction began in 1793. William Bingham, a wealthy Philadelphia merchant who later served in the U.S. Senate, became the company's president. The finished road cost about $465,000, or roughly $7,500 for each mile, an enormous investment for the young United States.

Building America's First Important Turnpike

The Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike was far more carefully engineered than the rougher roads of its era. Under its charter, the corridor was to be 50 feet wide, with at least 21 feet built as an artificial roadway resting on a compacted foundation. The surface was finished with gravel or crushed stone and designed to shed water instead of turning into deep mud under wagon wheels. The Federal Highway Administration describes it as the first long-distance broken-stone and gravel road in America built according to formal plans and specifications. It was also the first American road covered with a layer of crushed stone, according to FHWA's history of toll facilities.

Travelers paid according to what they brought onto the road. The company set rates by the damage that different vehicles were expected to cause. A horse and rider could travel 10 miles for about six cents, while drivers of freight wagons with narrow wheels paid considerably more. Wider wagon wheels were charged lower rates because they spread their weight across more of the surface instead of cutting deep ruts.

The road quickly became an important freight corridor. Lancaster County farmers gained a more dependable route to Philadelphia markets, and stagecoach operators also benefited from a surface that stayed usable during weather that could make ordinary roads nearly impassable. Other states soon took the project as a model. Turnpike companies multiplied during the early nineteenth century, and investors in Pennsylvania alone eventually built thousands of miles of privately operated toll roads.

Railroads Changed the Turnpike's Fortunes

The road's dominance did not last. Canals and railroads moved passengers and heavy freight more efficiently as the nineteenth century went on. By the 1830s and 1840s, much of the traffic had shifted away from the old turnpike. Maintenance declined along with traffic and toll revenue. Sections eventually passed into other hands, and tolls disappeared at different times rather than through one clean transfer of the entire 62-mile road. The Pennsylvania Railroad bought the stretch between Philadelphia and Paoli in 1876, and the state finally purchased the corridor in 1917.

Does America's First Toll Road Still Exist?

The Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike no longer exists as a single toll road, and drivers should not expect to find an intact 1795 roadway. More than two centuries of widening, resurfacing, and changes in alignment have transformed the route. The historic corridor remains easy to recognize, however. Traffic still runs along Lancaster Avenue through communities west of Philadelphia, and PennDOT identifies Lancaster Avenue through parts of Chester County with Business U.S. 30.

Farther west around Lancaster, portions of the old highway corridor are associated with today's Lincoln Highway and Pennsylvania Route 462. Driving these roads therefore puts travelers along much of the same general corridor used by stagecoaches and freight wagons in the 1790s, but little of the physical roadway can be considered original.

Other Roads That Claim the 'First' Title

The strongest later contender is the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It opened on October 1, 1940, with 160 miles of roadway between Carlisle and Irwin. Unlike the eighteenth-century turnpike, it was designed specifically for motor vehicles. It had four lanes across most of its route, limited access, gentle grades, and no ordinary intersections to interrupt traffic.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission calls it "America's First Superhighway," while FHWA describes it as the country's first long-distance stretch of four-lane, limited-access highway. Those are different claims from being America's first toll road. The Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike belongs to the horse-and-wagon era, while the Pennsylvania Turnpike became the model for the modern toll highway.

The Philadelphia And Lancaster Turnpike Earned Its Place in History

The Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike proved that private investors could finance a major road, recover part of the cost through tolls, and provide infrastructure on a scale that state governments of the 1790s could not fund themselves. Its original stone roadway has disappeared beneath more than two centuries of transportation development, yet traffic still runs heavily along the corridor. Parts of today's highway network still follow the path of a 62-mile experiment that began in 1792, at the start of America's first great era of toll-road construction.