An historic marker on Baltimore Street in Cumberland, Maryland, has a You Are Here map. It is along the bottom border of the A Boom for Cumberland - The National Road Meets the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad" plaque.
Your location is indicated by a red star and red lettering towards the left end of a terrain silhouette. The topography shown stretches from Baltimore in the east to Keysers Ridge in the west. Elevations range from Baltimore's sea level to about 3,000 feet at Keysers Ridge with many peaks and valleys in between.
The Historic Road • The Road That Built The Nation
A Boom for Cumberland
The National Road Meets the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad
The National Road and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad came together at this spot in 1842 at Cumberland's first railroad station. For a few years, it was necessary for passengers and freight to transfer from railroad cars to coach and wagon for the trip west. It was the reverse for the trip east.
National Road traffic flourished and the population of Cumberland nearly doubled by 1850, as Cumberland enjoyed a brief but lively boom. Old businesses expanded, new ones thrived. Construction filled the city with new warehouses, hotels and repair shops.
Travel on the National Pike thrived prior to the construction of the B&O Railroad. Throughout the first three weeks of March, 1848, stage coaches carried 2,586 passengers through Cumberland. One local old-timer claims to have sighted "fifty-two six-horse wagons...on the road at one time, and...at least 4,000 head of western cattle quartered at a single place."
In 1853, the railroad was completed to Wheeling, West Virginia. Travel on the National Road declined as speedier steam railroads replaced horse-drawn stagecoaches.