West Virginia Turnpike - History

History

In the antebellum years before West Virginia separated from Virginia, development of adequate roads was a major area of conflict between the western regions and the east. Through the Board of Public Works, the Virginia state government helped finance turnpikes among its programs to encourage internal improvements, with tolls collected to defray operating costs and retire debt. Principal among these was the east-west Staunton and Parkersburg Turnpike, completed from Staunton to the Ohio River at Parkersburg immediately prior to the American Civil War (1861–1865). However, many of the internal transportation improvements were destroyed during that conflict, although bonded debt remained to be paid, even as additional progress had ended. After resolution by the U.S. Supreme Court, which assigned 1/3 of the amount due to the new state early in the 20th century, West Virginia was faced with retiring its share of Virginia's pre-civil war debt for the earlier turnpikes (and canals and railroads) even as the citizens needed and sought better roads.

With the completion of the earliest portion of the Pennsylvania Turnpike before World War II by its northern neighbor, dreams in the Mountain State for such a "superhighway" took substantial root. By mid century, in the years before creation of the U.S. Interstate Highway System in 1956, superhighways in the form of additional toll roads such as the New Jersey Turnpike and the Ohio Turnpike began stimulating economic development and enhancing transportation in the eastern United States.

The challenge of terrain in West Virginia mirrored that of Pennsylvania in some ways, but with several important distinctions. Most important of these was that the first portion of the Pennsylvania Turnpike had largely followed and utilized a costly earlier rail project which had never been completed. In West Virginia, there would be no such advantage.