Caption: S. Pennock and Sons, 1885, Catalog advertising, Good Public Roads will add millions of wealth to the Country and Civilization and Improved Roads go Hand in Hand.
Chester County Historical Society, West Chester, Pa.
Caption: The Great Depression sped the abandonment of farms on marginal lands through foreclosures on mortgages. In June 1939, Farm Security Administration photographer Marion Post Wollcott took this picture of the public auction of a farm near York.
Library of Congress
Caption: In the early 1900s, thousands of miles of unpaved rural roads made travel slow, difficult, and occasionally impossible.
Courtesy: The Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: From colonial times onwards the maintenance of rural roads in Pennsylvania was a legal responsibility of local residents. This image appeared a catalogue for "Improved Road Machinery Manufactured by S. Pennock and Sons," of Chester County, Pennsylvania.
Chester County Historical Society, West Chester, Pa.
Caption: When George Washington Sears arrived in 1848, Wellsboro was a small forest town of less than 500 people. Wellsboro doubled in size between the arrival of the railroad in 1872 and Sears’s death in 1890, growing from 1,465 to almost 3,000 inhabitants. This photo of Wellsboro was taken in 1909 soon before its main streets were paved for the first time.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: Main street through Wellsboro after 1909 road improvement
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: In one of his first acts after becoming governor in 1931, Gifford Pinchot proposed that the state take control of more than 20,000 miles of township roads that it would transform into a planned and orderly system. Pinchot's road improvement program became Pennsylvania's first state-funded work relief program and provided jobs for thousands of unemployed workers.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: State and federal highway programs in the 1930s paved thousands of miles of Pennsylvania roads, bringing farms and small towns closer to the outside world.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: One of the programs that John Tener championed as governor of Pennsylvania was the paving of rural roads. In 1911, Tener signed the Sproul Highway Bill, which gave the state responsibility over 9,000 public roads than counties and cities had previously maintained. Rebuffed by voters for a bond issue to fund the program, Tener then signed a bill designating that fees charged for automobile registrations and drivers licenses be used for funding.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: Crowd at celebration of the Pinchot Road.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: Pinchot pushing the handle of explosive detonator.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: Pinchot and others inspecting the road.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives
Caption: Wellsboro, Pennsylvania thoroughfare after paving, 1909.
Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives