Defining Historic Roads: Aesthetic, Engineered, Cultural

There are three types of historic roads: aesthetic, engineered and cultural. The determination of road type is based on an analysis of the physical design of the road (a serpentine roadway along a stream, an elevated roadway over an urban area), the goals and expectations through which it was constructed (delivery of mail, access to a mine), its original intended uses (pleasure, commerce, speed), its physical setting (prairie, urban or landscaped park) and the design details that distinguish the road (stone arch bridges, utilitarian concrete culverts, ornate lighting, brick pavement, rough tunnels hewn through rock). For many historic roads, evolution over the years may have refocused or shifted the original goals and aspirations of the road’s creators—leaving a bewildering array of alignments and details. For some, the historic road’s origin may be lost in the wanderings of animals whose traces were eventually adopted by humans or the mundane practicality of two communities wearing a path across the landscape.

Aesthetic Routes

Aesthetic routes represent historic roads designed to provide a very specific traveler experience. In general these historic roads were designed for scenic enjoyment, leisure, recreation or commemoration. Aesthetic routes will have a documented purpose or rationale behind their development and a documented date of construction.

Seldom intended as the fastest or most direct route, aesthetic routes typically follow the natural topography of a region. They may wind through river valleys, along ridge tops, or up rainforest slopes. In urban areas, aesthetic routes are typically represented by boulevards, monumental avenues or parkways. These routes may be lined by great sculptures and ancient rows of trees, anchored by grand public edifices, or trace a serpentine route through public parks and park reservations. Whether crossing the natural landscape or defining a civic landscape, aesthetic routes are distinguished by their thoughtful attention to the traveler’s experience and careful attention to design details. Every view, whether a distant mountain range enframed by trees or a capitol dome rising above the city, is carefully planned and considered in the alignment of the road. Every detail such as plantings, lighting, barriers and pavement is designed or selected to support the overall design concept (the “look” and “feel” desired for the traveler). Often aesthetic routes may influence the larger landscape (beyond the right-of-way) such as a parkway’s viewshed (the views taken in from a particular vantage point) or the building façades along an urban route. Due to their conception and design as a singular statement, any alteration to any component of an aesthetic route will significantly impact the historic integrity of the resource.

Engineered Routes

Engineered routes represent historic roads designed for the efficient movement of people, goods and services. They are our most common designed roadways. While they may exhibit some aesthetic qualities or features, their design intent will be rooted in efficiency of movement, ease of access and prudent construction cost. Like aesthetic routes, engineered routes will have a documented purpose or rationale behind their creation and a documented date of construction.

More pragmatic in their origins than aesthetic routes, engineered routes have been designed to open isolated areas to commerce, reduce traffic congestion, link the nation, or simply link a farm to a market. Engineered routes are unlikely to influence or manage the larger landscape and are usually confined to their defined right-of-way. The alignment and details of an engineered route may be important in the representation of new roadway technologies or material innovations. Early transcontinental highways, turnpikes and toll roads represent many such engineering advances in materials, design and safety. Most basic city grid patterns represent the characteristics of engineered routes. Today, due to location or earlier technologies, many engineered routes have taken on aesthetic qualities as the design and construction techniques of the past become appreciated by new generations of users.

Cultural Routes

Cultural routes represent historic roads that evolved through necessity or tradition. While it is possible some cultural routes may have a documented rationale, they will not have the design and construction legacy of an aesthetic or engineered route. It is possible, and likely, that later additions or alterations may be well-documented—this category, however, addresses the nature of the original origin of the road. These may be roads that evolved from Native American roads, colonial routes or simply logical connections between villages or through difficult terrain. Roads through mountain passes or water gaps, paralleling the foot of mountains or following a line of stable soils or river courses are typical of cultural routes. Additional types of cultural routes may include a footpath between farms or to a resource site (sand, clay, timber or stone) or roads along section lines in the American Heartland (Land Ordinance of 1785) that ultimately became road. Some routes may have cultural associations through use, activity or events.

Cultural routes, in use as roads today, generally exhibit the greatest number of historic periods or layers. Beneath the modern pavement are potentially rich archaeological sites representing not only people and cultures over the years, but also the history of the very route—an ancient, indigenous road running along a stable ridge, areas of compacted soil from fifteenth century European conquest, evidence of a widening to accommodate a carriage in the 1730s, remnants of an old corduroy road from 1790 and early twentieth century highway improvements. For cultural routes, it is important to understand these layers as you make a determination as to the period, or periods, of significance that are worthy of preservation. Remember, subsequent layers of the road may embody the characteristics of aesthetic or engineered routes.

Multi-Category Routes

As soon as a definition is established, there are likely to be exceptions. For the three historic road “types” the question is not so much “exception,” but rather “combination” or “evolution.” Such roads may be defined as multi-category routes. Every road will be able to be categorized as aesthetic, engineered or cultural. As noted, many cultural routes may have aesthetic or engineered alterations over the years. Some may represent the characteristics of two or three of the defined categories at the point of design and construction. Such historic roads may be early freeways (engineered) that were also designed to provide a scenic experience within a spectacular natural setting (aesthetic). Others may be parkways (aesthetic) that were also designed to provide quick efficient movement for metropolitan commuter traffic (engineered). Usually, but not always, one of the three categories will be recognized as the primary characteristic-defining origin of the road.

Multi-category routes may be represented by roads with origins as a Native American road (cultural) that were adopted by European settlers for their trade needs (engineered) and ultimately redesigned as a parkway (aesthetic)—the Natchez Trace Parkway in Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, for example. A city grid pattern, as a whole, may be viewed as characteristic of the engineered routes category, but may include a grand avenue clearly characteristic of the aesthetic category.