Casselman River Bridge State Park

In 1806 Congress commissioned David Shriver Jr., a respected civil engineer from nearby Cumberland, to lay out and build the National Road, and the Casselman River crossing was one of its great tests. Shriver took personal charge of the bridge, and when it was finished in 1813 its stone arch stretched eighty feet from bank to bank, the longest single stone span in the country at the time. Builders even made the arch high and generous on the theory that canal boats might someday need to pass beneath it if the C&O Canal ever climbed the mountains.

The arch was cut and fitted entirely by hand from local stone, without any of the steel or concrete a modern bridge relies on, held up by nothing more than the precise geometry of the stones pressing against one another. That it has stood for more than two hundred years is a quiet testament to the skill of the men who built it. Today it is a National Historic Landmark, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the anchor of the little park named for it.

The National Road was the interstate highway of its day, the government's first great push to link the settled East with the frontier beyond the mountains. Wagons, stagecoaches, drovers, and settlers streamed over the Casselman arch heading west, and taverns and mills grew up along the route to serve them. For decades this bridge carried the traffic of a country expanding across the continent, until railroads and later automobiles reshaped how Americans traveled.

In 2026 the bridge earned a new and moving distinction when it joined the National Park Service's Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. In 1828 Josiah Henson, an enslaved man from Montgomery County, crossed here on a journey that ended with him self-emancipating and fleeing with his wife to Canada. Henson went on to found a settlement of freedom seekers and to write an autobiography that helped inspire the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. The National Road, running through free Pennsylvania between slave-holding lands, was a tempting corridor for people escaping bondage, and this graceful old arch was one of its stepping stones.

For all its history, the park itself is modest: four acres of grass and shade beside the Casselman River, one of the smallest state parks in Maryland. There are picnic tables, a place to fish the river, and the great stone arch to walk out onto and admire. It is the kind of stop that packs far more meaning than its size suggests, a reward for travelers who slow down on old Route 40 instead of rushing past on the interstate.

The state is investing heavily in the bridge's future, taking it apart and putting it back together stone by stone so that it can safely carry walkers and cyclists for generations to come. During the restoration you may find the span fenced and best viewed from the riverbank, but the setting remains lovely, and the work itself is a chance to see how such a structure is preserved. Just next door, the restored log cabins of the Spruce Forest Artisan Village and the historic Stanton's Mill round out an afternoon of Allegheny history.

The park sits just east of Grantsville along old U.S. Route 40, the historic National Pike, in the far western corner of Maryland near the Pennsylvania line. It is easy to reach from Interstate 68 and makes a natural pause on a mountain road trip through the Alleghenies or a side trip from the Deep Creek Lake area. Grantsville to the west has restaurants, lodging, and fuel, so the park pairs well with a meal in town.

Plan a short, unhurried visit rather than a full day. Walk down to the river, take in the sweep of the old arch, and read the markers that tell its layered story, from David Shriver's engineering to Josiah Henson's crossing. Bring a picnic, wander next door to the artisan village and mill, and let the quiet of this small park do its work. It is a reminder that some of the most important places on a road trip are the smallest, and that a single stone bridge can hold two centuries of a country's story.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.