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(Photograph by Chris Stevens) -
(Photograph by Chris Stevens) -
(Photograph by Chris Stevens) -
(Lisa Pfueller Davidson and Catherine C. Lavoie)
The La Vale Toll Gate House is a surviving example of an early tollhouse built along the National Road, the first federally built highway, constructed between 1811 and 1818. Controversy about use of federal funds and growing competition from the B&O Railroad and C&O Canal prompted the federal government to turn the National Road over to the respective states in the early 1830s. Maryland accepted its portion in 1835; it then quickly established a toll rate schedule and began building tollhouses. Located approximately six miles west of Cumberland, this one was the first erected by the state.
The road gradually fell into disrepair as toll revenue fell short and railroad transportation became dominant in the region. The State of Maryland turned the road over to the relevant counties in 1878. In 1925 portions of the National Road, including the section in La Vale, were incorporated into the construction of U.S. 40. The Toll Gate House was preserved and restored in the late 1960s, becoming a rare survivor of its type. The seven-sided building features a distinctive two-story polygonal section with more conventional one-story wings extending from the rear and side. Tollhouses in the Pennsylvania section of the National Road exhibit a similar polygonal form, differentiating these small-scale public buildings from their domestic neighbors.