1918 Brick Road

Cambridge, Ohio

Peacock Road, named for the noisy peacocks that lived on an adjacent farm, was once part of the National Road, America's first multi-state highway. It was a "highway" in name only; most of it was rutted, muddy country lanes, like Peacock Road.

In 1918, to make it passable to trucks moving heavy equipment during World War I, this section of the National Road was paved with bricks by prisoners from the Mansfield Reformatory. By today's standards it's still a tight squeeze, 17 feet wide, rather than 24 feet (plus shoulders) for a modern two-lane road.

This segment of the National Road was inadvertently preserved when it was bypassed by US-40 in 1936, and in the early 2000s it was bestowed its own historical marker. The prisoners did an exemplary job; the road hasn't been repaved in over 100 years, but the bricks from 1918 are still drivable.