Field Notes Ohio

Ohio's parks, forests and wildlife areas with camping, the ancient mounds beside them, and the Buckeye Trail that links them. Stories, trails, wildlife, and where to eat and fuel up nearby. Book campsites on ReserveOhio.
Try:
The Buckeye TrailA 1,444-mile blue-blazed loop around Ohio, with all 26 sections.
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Mounds & Earthworks43 ancient sites, including the Great Serpent Mound and the Newark Earthworks.
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Historic Sites39 places, from Fort Steuben and Zoar to Camp Chase and the Rankin House, from the frontier to the Civil War.
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Road Trips33 drives, from the Lincoln Highway to the Morgan Heritage Trail.
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Lake Erie Beaches20 public beaches from Conneaut to Toledo and the islands, with a map.
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Oddities & Roadside Attractions19 giants, ghosts and folk-art stops, plus a Mothman just over the line.
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Caves & Caverns12 show caverns, recess caves and rock shelters, with a map.
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Waterfalls34 falls from the Cuyahoga Valley to the Hocking Hills, with trail notes and a map.
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Explore Ohio

One map for every park, mound, historic site, beach, cave, waterfall and oddity in the app.

Lake ErieWest Virginia27 places277 places77 places73 places35 places519 places1913 places1319 places1916 places168 places810 places1010 places109 places98 places820 places204 places43 places3Barkcamp State Park4 places47 places77 places76 places69 places917 places173 places3Harrison Lake State Park2 places2Forked Run State Park3 places32 places26 places610 places103 places32 places2

Tap a symbol for a preview, or search for a place. Open the key to show or hide categories.

117 parks in 7 regions

Historic National Road (US 40)

Eastern, central and western Ohio
Heritage drive · St. Clairsville to Indiana line west of Springfield
225miles
2 daysto drive
10stops

America's first federally funded highway, 225 miles across Ohio with stone S-bridges, a Y-bridge and the National Road museum.

Length
225 miles across Ohio, following US 40
Authorized
By Congress in 1806, as the first federally funded road
Surface
The Bridgeport to Zanesville stretch was the first federal road built with the macadam technique
Byway
A National Scenic Byway and All-American Road, and an Ohio scenic byway since 2000
Markers
83 original mile markers are still visible along the Ohio route
Best for
Old bridges, roadside motels and small-town Main Streets
Pike towns
The byway is lined with pike towns that grew up around stopping points for foot and horse traffic; original 19th-century stone mile markers still stand along it; most of the road became US 40 in 1926

The story

The National Road was authorized by Congress in 1806 to run from Cumberland, Maryland, to the Ohio River, and it was extended west across Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. In Ohio ground was broken at St. Clairsville, and the road follows the earlier route of Zane's Trace, laid out by Ebenezer Zane. The stretch from Bridgeport to Zanesville was the first federal road built in America with the macadam technique, three compacted layers of stone laid in a shallow trough.

The road reached Zanesville in the 1830s and Columbus soon after, and it carried settlers, stagecoaches and Conestoga wagons west. With the coming of the automobile, it was paved with concrete between Zanesville and Hebron in 1914 to 1916, and tourist camps, motels, diners and gas stations replaced taverns and blacksmith shops. Today Ohio's stretch still has stone S-bridges, brick sections of the old road, historic taverns and 1950s roadside motels.

Stops along the way

1 St. Clairsville
Where ground was broken for the National Road in Ohio; the historic district is on the National Register.
2 Blaine Hill S-bridge
Ohio's oldest bridge, a stone S-bridge that served travelers for more than a century.
3 Cambridge and the Salt Fork and Fox Creek S-bridges
More of the road's signature stone bridges. Salt Fork State Park is about ten miles north.
Open
4 New Concord
The John and Annie Glenn Historic Site.
5 Norwich
The National Road/Zane Grey Museum, with a diorama of the road and Zane Grey's writing, plus a marker for Ohio's first traffic fatality. See the National Road & Zane Grey Museum entry.
Open
6 Zanesville
The Y-Bridge, built in 1902 where the Licking and Muskingum rivers meet and listed on the National Register in 1973; see it from Putnam Park.
7 Eagle's Nest Monument
A granite boulder commemorating the concrete paving of the road from Zanesville to Hebron, 1914 to 1916.
8 Hebron and Buckeye Lake
The old road's canal and lake country. Buckeye Lake State Park is close to the road.
Open
9 Columbus
Franklin Park Conservatory, on the original road, was the Franklin County Fairgrounds from 1886 to 1894. Camp Chase Cemetery is in the west of the city.
Open
10 Springfield
The road runs west toward the Indiana line by the Lower Valley Pike scenic byway. Buck Creek State Park is on the edge of the city.
Open

Take the stops with you

Load the 10 stops into your maps app to drive between them.

Google Maps: stops 1 to 10

The file holds 10 waypoints and a stop-by-stop route line. Locations are approximate, often a town center, so use the stop notes to find the exact spot. Your maps app chooses the roads between stops, usually the fastest, so follow the byway signs where they differ. The GPX arrives in a zip file; unzip it and open the .gpx in a GPS or hiking app. The CSV imports into Google My Maps.

Where to camp nearby

Salt Fork State Park
Ohio's largest state park, north of Cambridge.
Open
Buckeye Lake State Park
A historic canal reservoir near Hebron.
Open
Buck Creek State Park
A big lake park at Springfield.
Open

Tips

  • Take the old brick and S-bridge sections where you can; the newer four-lane US 40 is the fast version.
  • Give the National Road/Zane Grey Museum an hour.
  • Stop at 1950s motels and diners; a few are still open 24 hours.

Distances are the route lengths given by the sources. Confirm road conditions, closures and seasonal hours before you go.

America's Byways: Historic National Road →

Details last checked 2026-09-22. Confirm hours and prices before you go.