We’ve all traveled the road known as Limestone Trace at some point or another.

Maybe you traveled the road from Ewing to Millersburg; Carlisle to Paris and Lexington; or just around Maysville as you go from southern areas of the county to the Simon Kenton Memorial Suspension Bridge into Ohio.

Today, we all refer to the Limestone Trace as U.S. 68, also designated the Simon Kenton Highway.

The road also has other names: the Maysville-Lexington Turnpike or the Maysville Road.

The Limestone Trace was the route settlers used to move inward from the Ohio River: settlement in Limestone (Maysville) was unstable until Indian hostilities ceased at the end of the Revolutionary War.  Once the route was safe to travel, settlers moved into Kentucky at a rapid pace, creating towns and villages along the road to Frankfort.

A book published in 2012 has highlighted the history of the Maysville-Lexington Turnpike.  Authors Karl Raitz and Nancy O’Malley chart the history of the Maysville Road in their book, Kentucky’s Frontier Highway: Historical Landscapes along the Maysville Road.

A new exhibit related to the book and curated by Nancy O’Malley, Road Life: Sites and Scenes along Kentucky’s First Highway, is on display at the Kentucky Gateway Museum Center through Sept. 28.

To kick off the exhibit, which officially opened June 15, a book signing will be held today, Saturday, June 22 from 1-3 p.m. at KGMC with both authors in attendance.

The exhibit and book explores how communities, businesses and social life developed along the route.  Artifacts uncovered during archaeological digs in the 1990s are part of the exhibit, giving visitors a glimpse of the settler’s family china; the tools forged by blacksmiths; and the design of family homes and business structures.

A 1794 map of the Limestone Trace illustrates how difficult travel along the route was with its numerous rivers and creeks and hilly terrain.

For anyone who has traveled the Maysville Road on a regular basis, familiar landmarks are recorded in photographs.  There is the site of John Miller’s saw and grist mill at Hinkston Creek in Millersburg; the stone tavern which has been undergoing restoration for years in Ellisville, the first county seat of Nicholas County; the stone building at the entrance of Elmendorf Farm that served as a waiting station for the local railroad; and Peyton Inn, a wood frame structure situated between Millersburg and Paris.

Plans for turning Limestone Trace into a turnpike with a hard surface began as early as 1817 with the charter of the Maysville-Lexington Turnpike Road Company. In 1827, the road company was incorporated again and money was raised by selling shares.  A bill introduced by Senator Henry Clay and passed by the U.S. Congress authorized the investment of $150,000 in federal funds in turnpike stock.  President Andrew Jackson vetoed the bill, arguing federal investment in state road projects was unconstitutional. The Kentucky Legislature then appropriated $213,200, half the total cost of road construction.

Irish emigrant laborers working for Irish road contractors built the new turnpike. Tolls were charged to pay for its maintenance.  The 67-mile turnpike took four years to build. Work began first on the four mile Maysville-Washington stretch.  As five-mile sections were completed, toll houses were erected and tolls collected from travelers: there were 13 tollgates and six covered bridges.  Three stage coach lines served the route until replaced by the railroad. By 1833, two-thirds of the road was macadamized. The Licking River crossing at Blue Licks remained unspanned after a spring flood dislodged the bridge abutments.  The road was finished in 1834 and the cost was $426,400. 

O’Malley and Raitz’s book Kentucky’s Frontier Highway, and O’Malley’s exhibit, explore more than the physical transformation of the Maysville Road; it looks at the cultural processes that shaped the route, taking special interest in the lives and experiences of people who lived along it. For example, in Lexington roads served as racial and economic barriers. African-Americans lived in neighborhood clusters on the city’s north side, bordered by North Limestone and Broadway. Other roads, like Bryan Station Road and Paris Pike, lead into the Bluegrass horse country and some of the region’s wealthiest counties. In addition to being a racial barrier, the Maysville Road corridor was also an active route of the Underground Railroad.

Another example of how communities were shaped and disappeared is the story of Monterey, a community just outside Paris.  Monterey began in 1823 and was first known as Sugartree Grove: it was situated near Houston Creek, wedged between the original Limestone Trace route and the new turnpike.  The community existed for just one century, but during that time it was home to lower and middle income whites and enslaved and free blacks.  One former female slave owned a farm in Monterey, prior to the beginning of the Civil War.  In the 1860s, Monterey was also called Houston, Houstonville or Houstonia.

Willis P. Dorsey was postmaster at Monterey for 20 years.  In 1842, the turnpike company ceased using Toll House No. 10. Dorsey bought the property and lived there with his family from 1842 to 1849.  An ivory parasol handle and cane handle engraved with “W.P. Dorsey” was uncovered during O’Malley’s archeological digs in Bourbon County and is part of the exhibit at the Museum Center.

Karl Raitz, professor of geography at the University of Kentucky, is coauthor of Rock Fences of the Bluegrass and coeditor of The Atlas of Kentucky.

Nancy O’Malley is the assistant director of the William S. Webb Museum of Anthropology at the University of Kentucky.

The Kentucky Gateway Museum Center is located at 215 Sutton Street, Maysville.

From left, Senator Henry Clay, President Andrew Jackson and John Loudon McAdam.  Clay and Jackson argued over who should pay for construction of the Maysville-Lexington Turnpike; the federal or state government. McAdam was a Scottish engineer and road-builder and invented a new process, “macadamisation”, for building roads with a smooth hard surface.

Artifacts uncovered during archeological digs conducted by Nancy O’Malley in the 1990s.

It is possible this ivory parasol handle and cane head, with the inscription W.P Dorsey, were owned by Willis P. Dorsey, the postmaster at Monterey for 20 years.  Dorsey and his family lived in Tollhouse No. 10 from 1842 to 1849, after it ceased functioning as a tollhouse on the turnpike.

This tavern in Ellisville still stands on U.S 68.  James Ellis settled in the area around 1807 and Ellisville became the first county seat of Nicholas County. Carlisle became the county seat in 1814.  The area has also been known as Shake Rag.

This photo shows Hinkston Creek at the southern end of Millersburg.  John Miller, a Pennsylvania immigrant  built the first saw and grist mill on Hinkston Creek.  The Limestone Trace formed Millersburg’s North Main Street.

This view of the Ohio River is taken on the Limestone Trace road, now known as Old U.S. 68 in Maysville.  Notice how sparse the trees are and the large building at the bottom right, in an area known as Smokey Hollow at the base of the road.

This ring was uncovered during archeological digs conducted in the 1990s. The gemstone is paste.