Remembering North Carolina’s famous Plank Road

North Carolina once was home to the longest wooden road in the world, built by the Fayetteville and Western Plank Road Company and stretching 129 miles from Fayetteville in Cumberland County to Bethania in Forsyth County.

 

A Pinterest post from fayettebill24 reported that “in the 1980s, the City of Fayetteville sponsored an archaeological dig. Beneath the modern pavement were foundation logs of the old Fayetteville and Western Plank Road, constructed in 1849. The photograph shows foundation logs which supported the planks that surfaced the street.”

One of the communities that has preserved the heritage of the Plank Road is Seagrove in rural Randolph County. An historic toll house was located at Seagrove, and one of the town’s primary streets is officially named Old Plank Road. 

The town’s history mentions that Seagrove’s old toll house was a two-story structure with a sheltered port on the front of the house that extended out to the Plank Road. It was operated by James Page and his family. 

“The drivers would stop and ring a bell located on a post, and one of the Page children would collect their money in exchange for a ticket to the next toll house,” according to the narrative. The toll houses were positioned about 11 miles apart. 

The fare was a half-cent for a rider on horseback, one cent for a one-horse wagon and an additional cent for each extra horse to a team. The Plank Road proved to be very popular for stagecoach lines.

 

“If any of the travelers wished to stay the night, there were rooms on the second floor of the toll house available for lodging,” the historical account noted. 

“The Plank Road was free from mud and considered to be an all-weather road. It helped the farmers and manufacturers get their products out to market. At nightfall, four or five wagoners would often camp together, sharing news of their adventures along with music and corn liquor.” (Randolph County was once known as America’s “moonshine capital.”) 

Dr. Troy Kickler of the North Carolina History Curriculum Project at the John Locke Foundation, said plank roads helped awaken the state from “its supposed economic slumber in the antebellum era,” and a whole system of roads “paved in wood” would rescue the state from its “slothful economic condition” and “free citizens from the bondage of primitive roads.”

Dr. Kickler 

 

One of the earliest advocates for wooden roadways was North Carolina Gov. John Motley Morehead, who served from 1841-45. “He earned the reputation of being the “Father of Modern North Carolina.”

 Bust of Gov. Morehead at the North Carolina capitol.

In 1842, he proposed construction of a road providing transportation from Fayetteville into western North Carolina and suggested the state help pay for it, wrote L. McKay Whatley, a Randolph County historian and author. 

Gov. Morehead envisioned that plank roads would complement the railroads. “Plank roads were much less expensive to build and maintain than railroads, and they could reach small towns and rural areas where rail service was impractical,” said the late Harry McKown of the UNC Libraries. 

Gov. William Alexander Graham, who served from 1845-49, is credited with bringing the “plank road movement in North Carolina to fruition in the late 1840s,” Whatley said. “In a message to the legislature in 1848, Gov. Graham argued for the “indispensable necessity of improving our public roads,” claiming the state’s existing system was the worst in the country.

Gov. Graham

 

“In the antebellum period, the state had only occasionally taken a role in roadbuilding or upkeep,” Whatley said. Roadwork had been largely left up to local officials who often lacked financial resources and technical knowledge. 

The Fayetteville and Western Plank Road Company received $120,000 in public funds, as the state agreed to buy 60% of its stock in January 1849. Private investors quickly raised an additional $80,000. Construction began on the great Plank Road a few months later.