The Early Days of the William Penn Highway: How Present-Day U.S. Route 22 Got its Start

In a view looking south in Dauphin County, the William Penn Highway is crowded between the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Harrisburg–Buffalo main line and the Susquehanna River. The railroad’s 48-arch Rockville Bridge is visible in the distance.
Collection of Dan Cupper

At the dawn of the automobile age, the major roadways crossing Pennsylvania were rutted, dusty, farm-to-market thoroughfares traveled mainly by horses and wagons. Many of these were still privately owned turnpikes, some with wooden-plank road surfaces. Most towns had improved streets, but the paving, if any, usually ended at the city line.

Stagecoach lines still operated here and there, but railroad passenger trains had replaced them for cross-state and longer-distance travel, being faster, more reliable, and more comfortable for travelers.

When automobile ownership changed from being a plaything of the rich to something an average citizen could afford, the public cry for better roads began to grow louder. An act passed on May 31, 1903, created the Pennsylvania Department of Highways, predecessor of today’s Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

“In 1912 the definition of a ‘good’ road was one that was graded,” highway historian Rickie Longfellow wrote. “Most gravel and brick roads were found in the cities, leaving open roadways, in the pre-asphalt and concrete era, much to be desired. America boasted 2.5 million miles of roads, but most roads were dirt and didn’t connect. These dirt roads were bumpy and dusty in dry weather and impassable in wet.”

The next year, entrepreneur and promoter Carl G. Fisher (1874–1939) of Indianapolis started a movement to push for a transcontinental roadway. It became the celebrated and widely known Lincoln Highway, which is largely today’s U.S. Route 30. Considered to be the first coast-to-coast road, it connected New York City with San Francisco, passing through Pennsylvania via Philadelphia, Lancaster, York, Gettysburg, Chambersburg, McConnellsburg, Ligonier, Greensburg, Wilkinsburg and Pittsburgh.

Nationally, the 3,389-mile Lincoln Highway became the preeminent example of the Good Roads Movement, another manifestation of the Progressive Era, which fueled improvements in education, public sanitation, water quality, workplace safety, public parks, government and infrastructure, among other aims. In Pennsylvania, citizens formed a state Goods Roads Association to push for paved highways.

From a standpoint atop the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Muleshoe Curve, west of Duncansville, the William Penn Highway ascends westward toward the summit of Allegheny Mountain, also known as Cresson Mountain.
Pennsylvania State Archives, MG-213

Cambria County highway boosters in 1915 tried to persuade the Lincoln Highway Association to approve an alternate Lincoln route through Johnstown, but failed, according to the Johnstown Tribune. That, plus the interest shown by other central-route proponents, fed momentum for a meeting in Harrisburg to organize a competitor, the William Penn Highway (WPH).

“The Lincoln Highway folks told the Cambrians that the Lincoln route was definitely decided upon,” reported the Harrisburg Telegraph, “and that thereupon the local people decided that if they could not have an alternate Lincoln route, they would have a road of their own.”

Delegates from every town and village along the proposed corridor planned to attend — some as small as Mexico in Juniata County and as large as the City of Harrisburg.

The goal was an east–west, Philadelphia–Pittsburgh highway via Norristown, Pottstown, Reading, Lebanon, Hershey, Harrisburg, Lewistown, Huntingdon, Altoona, Johnstown and Greensburg. In other words, west of Harrisburg it would largely shadow the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), which connected more and larger population centers than did the Lincoln Highway. One big drawback of the Lincoln was its steep topography. It climbed multiple mountain summits, making winter travel difficult, at best, and often impossible. Because the proposed William Penn traced much of the railroad’s route, it followed the water-level Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, with just one major hill to climb — Allegheny Mountain, also known locally as Cresson Mountain, with a summit elevation of about 2,300 feet.

But not all of its construction was easy. In 1914 the Harrisburg Star-Independent reported that the state had successfully paved a troublesome 10.8-mile stretch in a valley known as the Lewistown Narrows in Juniata and Mifflin counties. There, the roadway shared a narrow ravine with the Juniata River, the former Pennsylvania Canal and the PRR.

In a scene looking northwest a few miles from Mifflintown, the crude and barely paved William Penn Highway hugs the mountainside in the Lewistown Narrows near the Juniata–Mifflin county line. The Juniata River is on the left.
Pennsylvania State Archives, MG-213

“When the work was first started, the highway was considered almost impassable,” reported the newspaper. “Winding along the base of the mountains in the only practical crossing place connecting the eastern and western parts of the state, the roadway was filled with rocks and ruts and was frequently rendered absolutely impassable by bad weather conditions.

“Beset with engineering difficulties of the worst kind, this stretch of highway has caused the contractors no end of trouble and taxed the efficiency of the [Pennsylvania] Department [of Highways].”

The Star-Independent added that the opening “gives a new route to the west, one which, by reason of its difficult passage, was seldom used by travelers crossing the state, but which will now be used by all who do not care to take the southern route, near the Maryland line. For years it has been a puzzle to road builders and engineers how to get through the narrows with a good road, but the difficulty has at last been solved.”

The next year, the Harrisburg Telegraph, while giving a nod to the Lincoln Highway as being “bound to become famous among the highways of the world,” added that “Pennsylvanians are not going to be satisfied with one main highway through this imperial Commonwealth. . . . Already fine stretches extending many miles have been constructed and the only thing yet to be done is the connecting of the detached portions of the proposed highway so that there may be a continuous route.”

Not long afterward, the Johnstown Daily Democrat took a jab at the Lincoln Highway by writing that it “established its Pennsylvania route before Pennsylvania knew what was going on. Harrisburg was left far afield . . . [the William Penn] makes no roundabout detours nor cobwebs here and there” and “is certainly going to be the aorta of travel in Pennsylvania before very long.”

The Big 1916 Meeting

Momentum for a William Penn Highway seems to have picked up with Gov. Martin G. Brumbaugh (1862–1930), who in the fall of 1915 took a series of “Seeing Pennsylvania” auto jaunts, riding in a touring car bearing Pennsylvania license plate No. 1. During one of his many speeches, he voiced support for the William Penn, which was apparently the first time that roadway name had been announced.

Just as the Lincoln Highway promoters capitalized on patriotism by using the name of the 16th president (Fisher’s original, discarded name was “Coast-to-Coast Rock Highway”), so these boosters wanted to make the most of the historic appeal of the name of Pennsylvania’s founder.

Meanwhile, all along the route, boosters and chambers of commerce planned to send delegations to the grand organizing event for the William Penn Highway Association (WPHA), to be held March 27, 1916, at the Harrisburg YMCA’s Fahnestock Hall.

When the day arrived, more than 650 delegates from 14 counties — at least half from Blair County alone, many of them riding on a chartered six-car PRR train — showed up. “The hall was packed to the limit, delegates even sitting on the piano and over 100 standing about the walls,” reported the Altoona Mirror. The Harrisburg Telegraph called the mood “jubilant.”

Concrete pavement was laid on the river route of the William Penn Highway in Perry County, one of the three hotly contested proposed alignments for the road. In the end, the highway followed the Juniata River, barely seen through the trees to the right.
Collection of Dan Cupper

Each delegation came with dual aims, having both offense and defense in mind — lobbying the concept of a through highway, while at the same time making sure that its community was not left off the map. But of this they were certain: They needed to ensure that the Lincoln Highway would not remain the only cross-state route.

Commonwealth Trust Co. banker William Jennings (1868–1926) of Harrisburg was elected president of the association; other officers were Elmer M.C. Africa of Huntingdon, Frank M. Graff of Blairsville, David Barry of Johnstown, and E.E. Gibbs of Huntingdon. Jennings, already chairman of the Harrisburg Chamber of Commerce’s Good Roads Committee, was well versed in the needs, abilities and priorities of the fledgling highway industry.

A Board of Governors from all 14 counties — with power to determine the final routing — was named, and an emblem consisting of the letters “WPH” in a keystone was adopted. Dues of $5 a year were set, apparently for local booster groups, and collected on the spot. Also, a $1 membership was initiated to attract individual citizens.

In place of Governor Brumbaugh, State Highway Commissioner Robert J. Cunningham spoke. He heartily supported their goal but reminded delegates that legislators had recently “dumped” 10,000 miles of poorly paved local roads onto state ownership with inadequate funding to cover maintenance and repair.

Mindful that the competing Lincoln Highway was a transcontinental route, the group passed a resolution naming the William Penn an integral part of another cross-continent route, the ostentatiously named Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway.

With that agenda item cleared, “bitter wrangles” broke out over the WPH’s exact routing. In Perry County, would the highway pass through Newport, New Bloomfield or Liverpool? Would it zig to include Altoona and Tyrone, or would it zag to bypass them on a straighter, shorter line via Hollidaysburg and Cresson that served but a tenth of the population?

Looking northwest near Duncannon, this view shows the junction of the William Penn Highway to Pittsburgh, left, and the Susquehanna Trail to Williamsport. Amity Hall Inn is on the left. Named and marked trails became a thing of the past when a uniform national scheme turned these roads into U.S. 22, left, and U.S. 11/15, right.
Collection of Dan Cupper

Supporters of each route “had it out in a very lively discussion which at times got bitter,” reported the Philadelphia Record. The Harrisburg Telegraph noted that the issue “brought forth some real orators and heated arguments but it will remain for the board of governors to make a decision.”

“Naturally, every town in Perry County and every other county in Pennsylvania would be glad to have the road,” the Telegraph continued, “but as this is impossible, slighted towns must be content with knowing that the road will traverse the most thickly settled districts and sections where it will be of most benefit.”

Arguments over Perry and Blair routings raged for more than an hour, but still no consensus was reached. “Feeder” and “alternate” routes came up in discussion, including a route from Washington through Gettysburg to Harrisburg, a section from New York to Reading via Bethlehem and Allentown, and roads to connect the William Penn with Millersburg and Centre County. Again, no final decisions were made.

Regardless, the Altoona Mirror reported that WPHA would form local chapters, and “membership in these clubs will be $5 a year and it is hoped, in this way, to raise $25,000 a year or more toward the upkeep of the road.”

Citizen aid to highways was more than just monetary in those days. A couple of statewide “Good Roads Days” brought crowds out to volunteer on leveling and grading roadways that were previously rutted, muddy paths. On the second such organized day, held in May 1916, an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 Pennsylvanians contributed their labor, nearly twice the number who did so at the same event in 1915. One of those was Governor Brumbaugh, who rolled up his sleeves, grabbing a shovel to pitch in at a few sites near Harrisburg. Corporations and public-minded citizens donated materials for the workday.

But despite such high-level appearances, momentum for good roads was not universal. Statewide, Pennsylvania voters in 1913 had defeated a referendum to provide stable bond funding for highways.

Francis X. O’Brien, left, poses on the Capitol steps in Harrisburg while on a 956-mile promotional hike from Philadelphia to Chicago to publicize the need for good roads. With him is Melville James, secretary of the William Penn
Highway Association

A Full-Time Secretary

WPHA, meanwhile, began to ramp up publicity, hiring as a full-time secretary Melville H. James (1882–1934), a writer for the Johnstown Democrat who left the paper to set up the association’s office in Harrisburg. A resident of Ebensburg, Cambria County, he was an ardent supporter of the WPH, and thus an ideal spokesman. His office was situated in the Telegraph Building, home of the Harrisburg Telegraph, which not surprisingly was one of the loudest editorial voices in favor of the William Penn.

Upon James’ appointment in May 1916, the Telegraph gave this summary of his mission: “From this office will be directed the campaign which before long is expected to result in the permanentization [paving] of the entire 300 miles of thoroughfare from Philadelphia to [Pittsburgh] and . . . it is prophesied, send 1,500 vehicles daily east and west along the William Penn.”

The same newspaper editorialized: “The movement, although well started, is only in its infancy. . . . It means more than the selection of a series of existing highways as a route. It means the rebuilding of hundreds of miles of road that are now in use, but not fit to be a part of such a great and comprehensive system. This will cost money.”

While the routes of the easternmost and westernmost legs of the William Penn Highway were mostly settled, the Perry County and Blair County alternatives were left to fester. In June 1916 WPHA chairman Jennings held a town meeting in the Newport borough building where he listened to advocates for each of the three Perry County routes.

Boosters from Newport raised the specter of U.S. involvement in World War I, declaring that the alignment from Amity Hall (near Duncannon) to Newport would stand the Armed Forces in good stead for “preparedness,” should the need to move military equipment arise. This route, skirting the north or east bank of the Juniata River, was the shortest and least hilly, they pointed out. But 2 miles of it had been washed out in the flood of 1889, and they conceded that a detour via Liverpool, upriver on the Susquehanna, would have to be used for a while, even though it was longer and hillier.

Jennings remained noncommittal and “tactful,” according to the Newport News: “It was not proposed to locate a highway in the special interests of each of the 14 counties . . . but to form part of the prospective grand highway from coast to coast regardless of special interests anywhere.”

During the summer of 1916 more issues of routing arose as the proposed highway came closer to reality. The WPH was no longer a “paper highway,” as critics derided it, but a real and emerging force. Between Millerstown and Cresson, the highway’s backers pointed out, lay 113 miles of improved paved roadway. Much of the rest was a patchwork of city streets, dirt roads, privately owned turnpikes with tolls, and macadam or brick pavement.

The association’s Board of Governors met in Pittsburgh’s William Penn Hotel in June and in Philadelphia’s Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in July. Each time the newspapers declared that the route question had been settled; however, that was far from the truth. More alternatives and bypasses were discussed, and while some were discarded at once, others were tabled for further consideration.

Meanwhile, automobile clubs in Harrisburg, Lebanon and Reading filed a formal complaint against the Berks & Dauphin Turnpike Co., one segment of the WPH. They asked that the company either improve the poor road surface or stop collecting tolls. A few months later, the state Public Service Commission did order improvements, but on the larger question of the road’s standing as a tollway, the status quo remained. WPHA secretary James told Lebanon County boosters that “toll road or not, this is going to be the William Penn Highway — a thoroughfare permanentized every inch of the way from Penn Square, Philadelphia, to William Penn Place, Pittsburgh.”

W.D. Uhler, chief engineer of the Pennsylvania Department of Highways, gave the association permission to begin marking the route. In those days before a central federal U.S. highways organization, roadside trailblazes with distinctive lettering and colors were used to differentiate named routes. According to the Altoona Tribune, the William Penn markers were to consist of a 10-inch red stripe and 10-inch white stripe with blue letters “W.P.H.” on the white. The paper reported: “Beneath the white stripe will be a gold keystone on a blue background, with the gold letters ‘WM. PENN H.’ A phosphorescent substance will be used in the gold color, so that the marker will be visible at night.”

According to the same paper, whether the route was actually final or not, the association announced plans to issue a booklet “showing the route in detail, from Philadelphia to the Ohio state line.” It would include “mileages, running directions, points of interest to tourists, [and] marketing information for farmers.”

Marking the Route

In September 1916 WPHA arranged a five-day convoy to inspect and map the main route and its alternatives. The party included WPHA secretary James; a mapmaker; representatives of two national autotour guides, the Red Book and the Blue Book; and representatives of three Philadelphia newspapers. The Harrisburg Auto Co. supplied two large Reo six-cylinder, seven-passenger touring cars. Draped over the hood of each was a banner reading “Wm. Penn Highway Assn. Pilot and Pathfinder.”

A two-car convoy of Reo automobiles pauses in Johnstown during a September 1916 cross-state journey to mark and map the William Penn Highway and its alternate routes.
From The Johnstown Tribune, September 7, 1916

At the close of each day’s run, the Philadelphia North American reporter sent a dispatch covering the delegation’s progress to be printed in the next day’s edition. Beginning on Monday, September 4, in Philadelphia, the tour followed this schedule:

• September 4, Philadelphia to Harrisburg via Reading and Lebanon, staying overnight at the Hotel Bolton. En route, the group was halted at 13 Berks & Dauphin Turnpike Co. tollgates between Reading and Harrisburg, paying $1.02 for each of the two cars in what a reporter termed “bothersome” tolls over an “ancient” roadway. That description was apt: Its charter dated from 1804.

• September 5, Harrisburg to Ebensburg via Liverpool, Millerstown, Lewistown, Huntingdon, Tyrone, Altoona and Loretto. The 165-mile trip was delayed by rain, concluding its run three hours late. Asked about the prospects of trying to improve local streets as part of the WPH, the Dauphin Borough secretary said he couldn’t do much with just $4.36 in the treasury.

• September 6, Ebensburg to Pittsburgh via Johnstown, Armagh, Blairsville, New Alexandria and Wilkinsburg. Upon arrival in Pittsburgh, the group learned that the segment from Pittsburgh to the Ohio line had already been marked and decided to start for home the next morning.

• September 7, Pittsburgh to Lewistown via Wilkinsburg, Greensburg, New Alexandria, Blairsville, Armagh, Ebensburg, Loretto and Hollidaysburg (but not Johnstown or Altoona).

• September 8, Lewistown to Philadelphia, concluding the trip about 8 p.m.

Along the way, the party had been delayed by tire trouble, weather, local receptions, detours and tollgates, but had nevertheless completed its mission.

The Pittston Gazette reported that by this time, WPHA counted 2,000 individual members who had paid dues of $1 each. The dues included a gold-and-blue lapel pin, and members could also buy a marked WPH radiator cap. The same paper characterized the highway as “Pennsylvania’s greatest market road and scenic route . . . it passes through the state’s prettiest scenery and brings farms and their products closer by many hours to the market.”

A November 1916 brochure touted WPHA’s aims as “the permanentization of an arterial road system in Pennsylvania generally, and the William Penn Highway in particular,” opening the door ever so slightly for improvements to more than just the WPH.

A Concrete Highway

The next big development took place on November 2, when Governor Brumbaugh presided at the dedication of an 8-mile demonstration concrete highway at Easton, Northampton County, on what was now the “New York Extension” of the WPH. The cement for the highway was donated by area suppliers, with sand and labor paid for by the state. Some 2,000 autos rolled over the new pavement, and an estimated 10,000 people attended the event, many of them arriving by chartered trains from Harrisburg, Scranton and New York City.

Early in 1917 the Harrisburg Telegraph reported on the extensive progress made by WPHA, saying that it “has grown from a little acorn to a great oak.” A Dauphin County weekly, the Elizabethville Echo, noted that the state Department of Agriculture planned to plant fruit and nut trees along the WPH and its New York and Washington extensions.

In a view looking east, the William Penn Highway diverges from the Lincoln Highway at Wilkinsburg.
Collection of Dan Cupper

Later in 1917 the state came to terms on a takeover of the Berks & Dauphin Turnpike Co., paying the toll road owners a total of $70,000, half from the state and half from Dauphin, Lebanon and Berks counties. The road stretched 34½ miles from Wernersville, Berks County, to Hummelstown, Dauphin County. Tolls were lifted on September 1, 1917, and the company was dissolved on September 26.

Road boosters held a celebratory corn roast, and farmers were especially pleased. One told the Harrisburg Telegraph: “The gates on this pike cost me an average of $100 a year. Naturally, I passed this charge on to the folks to whom I sold produce. The charging of tolls meant, too, that I did not use the road as often as I would had it been free. I made only one trip in a day, whereas from my farm it would be possible to go to Harrisburg three times daily, with produce.”

The state had earlier purchased the West Kishacoquillas Turnpike Co., which stretched 9 miles between Reedsville and Belleville in Mifflin County, another link in the WPH, paying $6,500 to the owners to lift the tolls. In the end, the highway took a shorter route through McVeytown along the Juniata River, avoiding the alignment through Belleville altogether, but it had been an early element of the William Penn.

The Clarks Ferry Bridge across the Susquehanna River near Duncannon remained as a major toll impediment. A 1934 U.S. Supreme Court ruling set the fare at 8 cents for cars, 40 cents for trucks, and 50 cents for buses. Over time, four governors tried to buy this and other toll bridges throughout the state, but motorists continued to pay to cross the river for decades to come. Tolls were not lifted at Clarks Ferry until 1957.

Opened May 30, 1925, the concrete-arch Clarks Ferry Bridge over the Susquehanna in Dauphin County replaced an 1859 wooden covered bridge. William Jennings of Harrisburg was president of both the bridge company and the William Penn Highway Association.
Collection of Dan Cupper

WPHA secretary James started a periodical, the Bulletin, in which he published notes about the highway and good roads generally. In an early edition, the Bulletin noted that the Tyrone, Altoona and Harrisburg chambers of commerce had taken out life memberships in the association. It also reported that the number of farmers’ automobiles in counties touched by the WPH had increased by 4,000 in 1916 over the previous year.

As war in Europe broke out, the association’s Board of Governors pledged its support for President Woodrow Wilson and discussed ways to aid the military, should that become necessary. James’ Bulletin pointed out that Governor Brumbaugh declared that “mobilization of the troops of the country cannot be accomplished successfully without the establishment of great trunk line highways over which artillery as well as infantry could pass speedily and safely.” Senator Boies Penrose termed the WPH a “valuable unit” in a system of military preparedness.

National defense needs didn’t preclude local matters, however. At its March 26, 1917, meeting, the board awarded contracts for the placement of WPH trailblazer markers along 410 miles of roadway, with the actual locations left to the association delegates in each county. This action covered the main route, the New York Extension, and a few alternate routes.

That summer, James reported on a six-day trip he had made over the WPH, talking to tourists, motorists and hotel owners. Travel had increased by 100 percent over the preceding 14 months, he said. At a large Ebensburg summer hotel, he interviewed several Philadelphia tourists, who told him that the William Penn was “a tire and gas saver, as well as a scenic wonder.” Over a five-hour period there, he counted an average of 72 cars per hour passing over the road.

About this time, the association published a statewide WPH map, which still failed to settle the Blair County alternate route questions, showing both a route through Altoona and Tyrone and another one — 18 miles shorter — through Hollidaysburg.

Out of the Mud

Beginning on April 4, 1918, Jennings and James started turning their attention from solely pushing the WPH to lobbying for a referendum statewide authorizing a $50 million highway bond issue. They affiliated themselves with a blanket group formed on that date, the Associated Highways Organization of Pennsylvania (AHOP). It comprised advocates for many named roads, including the Lincoln Highway, William Penn Highway, Buffalo–Pittsburgh Trail, Susquehanna Trail, Black Diamond Highway, Sullivan Trail, Lackawanna Trail and Perry Highway, among others.

James directed publicity for AHOP, issuing “hundreds of thousands of pamphlets and placards . . . from Harrisburg during the two weeks preceding the election,” according to the Harrisburg Telegraph. Pushing for the measure’s passage, Jennings noted, had been motor clubs, road organizations such as WPHA, chambers of commerce, boards of trade, department stores and motortruck manufacturers.

Roadside automobile culture in the form of cottages, motels, diners and gas stations emerged as motorists took to the highways in the 1920s and 1930s. This site at Lenhartsville was typical of many, offering gas, food and lodging under one ownership.
Collection of Dan Cupper

This time, voters reversed their stance of 1913, passing the measure by a comfortable margin of more than 75,000 votes. This prompted Jennings to say that Pennsylvania “has indeed voted to pull itself out of the mud.”

With stable funding for permanent roads assured, James left behind his WPHA days. On March 15, 1919, Highway Commissioner Lewis S. Sadler appointed him chief of the state Department of Highways’ Bureau of Information. He remained active in Republican politics and worked on a number of campaigns. He resigned from the highway department in 1926 and later worked for the auditor general’s office. In 1934 he died at home in McConnellsburg, Fulton County, of a heart attack at the young age of 52. He owned a hotel there, and it is more than a little ironic that despite his advocacy for the WPH, his hotel was situated on the Lincoln Highway.

Bit by bit and contract award by contract award, the state began to improve the WPH, filling the marginally passable gaps between stretches of good surface. For example, on December 16, 1919, the state awarded contracts for paving 6 miles between Blairsville, Indiana County, and New Alexandria, Westmoreland County, to a Braddock construction firm.

One week later, the state opened a 6½-mile stretch of new road between Dauphin and Clark’s Ferry Bridge in Dauphin County, using a combination of concrete, brick and bituminous (macadam) paving.

With the rise of predictable state funding, the William Penn Highway Association began to fade in importance. Some accounts list James as secretary of both AHOP and WPHA concurrently. Jennings identified himself as association president as late as 1921, when, in a letter to a newspaper, he reported that 660,000 Pennsylvanians owned cars, trucks or motorcycles.

The Moveable Highway

Throughout the 1920s the federal government moved to eliminate the nation’s hodgepodge of some 250 named trails. Impaneled was a Joint Board on Interstate Highways, consisting of 21 state highway officials (Pennsylvania was not among them). This committee devised a uniform system of marking and designating roads. The outcome, approved by the American Association of State Highway Officials, was that what had been known as the William Penn Highway was given the name U.S. 22. Its route ran through New Jersey to Easton, Bethlehem, Allentown, Reading, Lebanon, Harrisburg, Lewistown, Huntingdon, Hollidaysburg (but not Tyrone or Altoona), Cresson, Ebensburg (but not Johnstown), Wilkinsburg, Pittsburgh, and on into Ohio, eventually reaching Cincinnati. The feds had made the hard decisions that the WPHA avoided, choosing straight-line routing over serving every town and hamlet.

Feeder routes were identified with derivatives of the number 22, such as U.S. 122, 222, 322, 422, 522 and 622. All but 122 and 622 remain in effect today. With the arrival of uniform signage, the old practice of following trailblazer markers went away.

Opened on January 14, 1938, a $2.5 million, 540-foot-long through-truss bridge links Easton, Pennsylvania, with Phillipsburg, New Jersey. Spanning the Delaware River, it is also known as the Bushkill Street Bridge.
Collection of Dan Cupper

The original WPH alignment changed over time, in contrast to the Lincoln Highway, which remains now mostly where it has always been. Around Harrisburg, for example, the William Penn has followed three different paths east of the city: Derry Street, Old Jonestown Road, and the present Allentown Boulevard.

In 1931 the state opened a direct Harrisburg-to-Allentown highway by way of Hamburg, Berks County, rather than Reading, designating the new road as both the WPH and U.S. 22. The original routing from Harrisburg to Philadelphia through Hershey, Lebanon and Reading was renamed as the Benjamin Franklin Highway, U.S. 422.

In 1938 the old William Penn Highway Association came back to life to promote both the Lincoln Highway and the WPH in the face of coming economic competition. The proposed 160-mile-long, four-lane, limited-access Pennsylvania Turnpike between Carlisle, Cumberland County, and Irwin, Westmoreland County, would surely siphon traffic off those two roads, hurting business owners, restaurants, hotels and gas stations. Despite vocal opposition from this group, the superhighway — the first in the nation — was opened on October 1, 1940. That — and later extensions of the toll road to Philadelphia and Ohio — killed the prospects of either the William Penn or the Lincoln being modernized end-to-end in Pennsylvania. Instead, segments of both have been improved piecemeal in what highway historians call “braided-stream” style — a continuous thoroughfare with widely varying engineering standards, depending on when each portion was completed.

This 1930s photo is captioned “Final stretch on Allentown–Harrisburg Short Line in Lehigh County Finished — View of the road newly opened from Haafsville westward to the Berks County Line.” The William Penn Highway/U.S. Route 22 was diverted to a shortcut between Harrisburg and Allentown, bypassing Reading and Lebanon.
Collection of Dan Cupper

In addition, the route number and WPH designation were shifted as upgraded highway segments were opened. One example was the limited-access Penn-Lincoln Parkway East from Monroeville, Allegheny County, to Pittsburgh, including the Squirrel Hill Tunnel, opened in 1953. Given both the Lincoln and William Penn designations and named as a joint U.S. 22 and U.S. 30, it has been widened and improved several times. Much the same goes for U.S. 22 in the Lehigh Valley, which lies nowhere near the original WPH New York Extension.

Today, highway maps depict U.S. 22 crossing the state’s midsection on a path that is roughly similar to that which it did in 1916. In a nod to history, the maps also retain the William Penn Highway name. It remains the legacy of promoters — like Melville James and William Jennings — who fought to establish the road more than a century ago.

Further Reading

Butko, Brian. The Lincoln Highway Pennsylvania Traveler’s Guide. 2nd ed. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2002. / Musson, Robert A. The William Penn Highway. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2016 / Smith, Howard. “The End of the Road: Berks and Dauphin Turnpike.” Lebanon County Historical Society 13, no. 3 (1957): 110–142. / Wallace, Paul A.W. Indian Paths of Pennsylvania. 1965; reprint, Harrisburg, PA: Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission, 2018.

Dan Cupper is a transportation historian from Harrisburg and a retired locomotive engineer for Norfolk Southern Railroad. He has written numerous books and articles on transportation history. His previous contributions to Pennsylvania Heritage include “The Giant That Stumbled: Baldwin Locomotive Works Dominated Its Field for a Century, Then Vanished” (Spring 2021) and “Marketing Patriotism: Pennsylvania Railroad Advertising During World War II” (Summer 2020).