On Thursday, April 16, 2015, Dr. Billy Joe Peyton will present “Making the Crooked Ways Straight and the Rough Ways Smooth: Engineering and Construction of the National Road” in the Archives and History Library of the Culture Center in Charleston. The program will begin at 6:00 p.m. and is free and open to the public.
Planning for the Cumberland Road, or National Road, began in 1806, with construction carried out by the federal government from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling, (West) Virginia, between 1811 and 1821. Featuring a modern, paved surface and state-of-the-art bridges and culverts, it was the nation’s first interstate highway and an immensely popular route that transformed Wheeling into a “Gateway to the West.” Peyton will discuss engineering and construction of the National Road and the prominent role it played in the nation’s early growth and development.
Billy Joe Peyton received his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in history from West Virginia University. His 30-year public history career began in the 1980s at Prickett’s Fort State Park, West Virginia Public Broadcasting, the National Park Service, and Kaymoor Coal Mine site. Peyton later worked as associate director of the Institute for the History of Technology & Industrial Archaeology at WVU, cultural resource specialist at an historical architecture firm, and high school history teacher. He is currently Professor of History in the College of Business & Social Sciences at West Virginia State University and co-director of the Glenwood Center for Scholarship in the Humanities.
Peyton’s publication credits include entries in the West Virginia Encyclopedia (print and online versions), a chapter in The National Road: The Road & American Culture (1996), and two local history works titled Charleston Then and Now (2009) and Charleston: The First 225 Years (2013). He has also worked as writer and historian on several documentary films, including Ghosts of Green Bottom, Red Salt & Reynolds, and The Midland Trail, and may be seen in The 50 States series on the History Channel.
Billy Joe Peyton lives with his wife, Christine, their two children, and a pair of unruly hounds in a 100-year-old home in Charleston’s East End Historic District.
For additional information, contact the Archives and History Library at (304) 558-0230.
