About 1850 Ohio began leasing portions of the Cumberland Road to private companies. In 1854 the entire distance from Springfield to the Ohio River was leased for a term of ten years for $6,105 a year. Commissioners were appointed to view the road continually and make the lessees keep it in as good condition as when it came into their hands.[1] Before the contract had half expired, the Board of Public Works was ordered (April, 1859) to take the road to relieve the lessees.[2] In 1870 the proper limits of the road were designated to be "a space of eighty feet in width, and where the road passed over a street in any city of the second class, the width should conform to the width of that street," such cities to own it so long as it was kept in repair.[3]
Finally, in 1876, the state of Ohio authorized commissioners of the several counties to take so much of the road as lay in each county under their control. It was stipulated that tollgates should not average more than one in ten miles, and that no
