Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 10).djvu/187

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CONCLUSION
187

capable of being made substantial at a comparatively small cost, as the grading is quite perfect. Its course measures the shortest possible route practicable for a roadway from tidewater to the Mississippi River. As a trunk line its location cannot be surpassed. Its historic associations will render the route of increasing interest to the thousands who, in other days, will travel, in the genuine sense of the word, over those portions of its length which long ago became hallowed ground. The "Shades of Death" will again be filled with the echoing horn which heralded the arrival of the old-time coaches, and Winding Ridge again be crowded with the traffic of a nation. A hundred Cumberland Road taverns will be opened, and bustling landlords welcome, as of yore, the travel-stained visitor. Merry parties will again fill those tavern halls, now long silent, with their laughter.

And all this will but mark a new and better era than its predecessor, an era of outdoor living, which must come, and come quickly, if as a nation we are to retain our present hold on the world's great affairs.