WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.720 So if I asked you to picture a monument to the 00:00:02.720 --> 00:00:06.960 very first highway in American history, you'd 00:00:06.960 --> 00:00:09.519 probably picture something, well, something incredibly 00:00:09.519 --> 00:00:12.980 grand. Oh, yeah, like towering marble columns 00:00:12.980 --> 00:00:15.900 in Washington, D .C., or maybe some giant bronze 00:00:15.900 --> 00:00:19.480 plaque gleaming in the sun. Right. Exactly. You 00:00:19.480 --> 00:00:22.739 definitely wouldn't picture a bizarre, crooked, 00:00:23.199 --> 00:00:25.780 literally S -shaped pile of stones just sitting 00:00:25.780 --> 00:00:28.539 quietly in the middle of Ohio. No, you wouldn't. 00:00:28.679 --> 00:00:30.620 But honestly, you absolutely should, because 00:00:30.620 --> 00:00:33.259 it's funny how the physical reality of history 00:00:33.259 --> 00:00:36.659 rarely matches that pristine version we keep 00:00:36.659 --> 00:00:38.520 in our heads. Oh, for sure. It's always messier. 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:41.250 Yeah. The real monuments to how this country 00:00:41.250 --> 00:00:43.090 was stitched together, they're often just, you 00:00:43.090 --> 00:00:45.009 know, covered in dirt. They were built through 00:00:45.009 --> 00:00:48.369 sheer trial and error. And in this case, defined 00:00:48.369 --> 00:00:52.429 by some truly strange geometry. Which brings 00:00:52.429 --> 00:00:55.929 us to today. Welcome to today's Deep Dive. We 00:00:55.929 --> 00:00:58.670 are exploring a highly specific and honestly 00:00:58.670 --> 00:01:01.390 kind of bizarre piece of American infrastructure 00:01:01.390 --> 00:01:03.929 that was built back in 1828. It's officially 00:01:03.929 --> 00:01:07.129 called the S Bridge 2 and it's located in Muskingum 00:01:07.129 --> 00:01:11.120 County, Ohio. And this bridge is so peculiar, 00:01:11.659 --> 00:01:14.579 it actually earned the spot on page 203 of a 00:01:14.579 --> 00:01:20.239 book called Oddball, Ohio, a guide to some really 00:01:20.239 --> 00:01:22.799 strange places. Which, by the way, is just an 00:01:22.799 --> 00:01:25.079 incredible title for a history book. I know, 00:01:25.159 --> 00:01:27.140 right? It sets the perfect tone for this. It 00:01:27.140 --> 00:01:29.939 really does. So our mission today for this deep 00:01:29.939 --> 00:01:33.019 dive is to explore how this one seemingly obscure 00:01:33.019 --> 00:01:36.469 oddball structure serves as the the physical 00:01:36.469 --> 00:01:38.689 anchor for the birth of American federal highways. 00:01:38.909 --> 00:01:41.590 Yeah. It's the starting line, basically. Exactly. 00:01:41.650 --> 00:01:43.530 We're going to unpack the incredible historical 00:01:43.530 --> 00:01:46.069 footprint of the county it sits in and look at 00:01:46.069 --> 00:01:48.709 how we preserve these weird little marvels today. 00:01:49.730 --> 00:01:53.170 And whether you are a hardcore history buff or 00:01:53.170 --> 00:01:55.390 just someone who uses paved roads every single 00:01:55.390 --> 00:01:57.370 day and takes them completely for granted. Which 00:01:57.370 --> 00:01:59.489 is most of us, honestly. Right. Which is most 00:01:59.489 --> 00:02:02.010 of us. You are going to want to hear how this 00:02:02.010 --> 00:02:05.049 massive physical network actually started. I'm 00:02:05.049 --> 00:02:07.230 telling you, it completely changes the way you 00:02:07.230 --> 00:02:09.689 look at your morning commute. Oh, I bet. You 00:02:09.689 --> 00:02:12.229 really start seeing the ghosts of 19th century 00:02:12.229 --> 00:02:14.990 engineering in like every curve of the road. 00:02:15.169 --> 00:02:17.789 OK, well, let's unpack this because before we 00:02:17.789 --> 00:02:20.250 even look at the oddball bridge itself, we have 00:02:20.250 --> 00:02:23.520 to understand. the literal mud it was built on. 00:02:23.620 --> 00:02:25.159 Right, the foundation. Yeah, we have to start 00:02:25.159 --> 00:02:27.919 at the macro level. So Esbridge 2 is part of 00:02:27.919 --> 00:02:31.340 the National Road, which was the very first federally 00:02:31.340 --> 00:02:33.879 financed highway in the United States, built 00:02:33.879 --> 00:02:37.460 in 1828. 1828, yeah. And I was trying to wrap 00:02:37.460 --> 00:02:39.960 my modern brain around this. And the best analogy 00:02:39.960 --> 00:02:42.460 I could come up with is, OK, imagine crowdfunding 00:02:42.460 --> 00:02:46.219 the very first nationwide Wi -Fi network. OK. 00:02:46.650 --> 00:02:49.349 but for horse -drawn wagons. Like, that is what 00:02:49.349 --> 00:02:52.050 a federally financed highway actually meant back 00:02:52.050 --> 00:02:54.169 then. You know, that analogy actually works perfectly 00:02:54.169 --> 00:02:56.689 because of the word network. Really? Yeah, because 00:02:56.689 --> 00:02:59.349 before 1828, the United States did not have a 00:02:59.349 --> 00:03:01.409 physical network. I mean, if you were traveling, 00:03:01.590 --> 00:03:03.490 you were essentially dealing with disconnected, 00:03:04.030 --> 00:03:06.930 highly unreliable local routers to use your Wi 00:03:06.930 --> 00:03:09.110 -Fi comparison. Oh, okay. Like, dead zones everywhere. 00:03:09.799 --> 00:03:12.300 Exactly. You had dirt paths that just turned 00:03:12.300 --> 00:03:14.680 into impassable swamps the second it rained. 00:03:15.419 --> 00:03:18.259 You had roads maintained by local counties, but 00:03:18.259 --> 00:03:23.479 only up to their own borders. And then private 00:03:23.479 --> 00:03:26.080 turnpikes where some farmer might charge you 00:03:26.080 --> 00:03:29.199 a toll just to cross his field. Wow. But okay, 00:03:29.460 --> 00:03:31.280 I have to push back a little on the scale of 00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:33.669 this. or at least admit some confusion here. 00:03:34.270 --> 00:03:35.909 Because when I hear federally financed today, 00:03:36.150 --> 00:03:39.590 I just picture a routine bureaucratic infrastructure 00:03:39.590 --> 00:03:41.930 bill. The government hires some contractors, 00:03:42.069 --> 00:03:44.069 they lay down some asphalt, everyone complains 00:03:44.069 --> 00:03:46.169 about the traffic cones for a few months. Ruttles, 00:03:46.289 --> 00:03:49.669 yeah. Yeah. Was it really that simple in 1828? 00:03:49.909 --> 00:03:51.669 I mean, the United States was barely 50 years 00:03:51.669 --> 00:03:53.990 old. Oh, it wasn't simple at all. Not even close. 00:03:54.189 --> 00:03:56.550 What's fascinating here is that the very concept 00:03:56.550 --> 00:03:58.449 of the federal government financing a highway 00:03:58.449 --> 00:04:01.129 was incredibly controversial. Really? Oh, yeah. 00:04:01.389 --> 00:04:04.210 completely unprecedented. It wasn't just about 00:04:04.210 --> 00:04:07.210 making a commute slightly more convenient. By 00:04:07.210 --> 00:04:10.650 stepping in to finance a highway, the federal 00:04:10.650 --> 00:04:13.189 government was making this massive existential 00:04:13.189 --> 00:04:16.269 statement. They were basically saying, we cannot 00:04:16.269 --> 00:04:20.290 survive as a unified nation if we are physically 00:04:20.290 --> 00:04:22.930 isolated from one another. Ah, because of the 00:04:22.930 --> 00:04:25.009 geography. Exactly, because of the Appalachian 00:04:25.009 --> 00:04:28.980 Mountains. Right. They were a massive terrifying 00:04:28.980 --> 00:04:31.459 physical barrier. I mean, if you wanted to move 00:04:31.459 --> 00:04:33.860 goods or people or even just information like 00:04:33.860 --> 00:04:36.540 mail from the East Coast into the interior, into 00:04:36.540 --> 00:04:39.019 Ohio and beyond. It was probably agonizingly 00:04:39.019 --> 00:04:41.439 slow. Oh, painfully slow. It could take weeks 00:04:41.439 --> 00:04:43.899 to move a wagon a few hundred miles. You've got 00:04:43.899 --> 00:04:46.279 axles breaking, supplies rotting. So the federal 00:04:46.279 --> 00:04:48.420 government stepping in to build a national road, 00:04:49.060 --> 00:04:50.740 it was essentially a matter of national security 00:04:50.740 --> 00:04:53.500 then. Yes. Exactly that. It was about stitching 00:04:53.500 --> 00:04:56.480 the East Coast to the Western frontier before 00:04:56.480 --> 00:05:00.019 the country just, I don't know, fractured into 00:05:00.019 --> 00:05:02.639 isolated pieces. Precisely. The federal financing 00:05:02.639 --> 00:05:05.120 is the signal that physical connectivity had 00:05:05.120 --> 00:05:07.639 become the nation's ultimate economic destiny. 00:05:08.300 --> 00:05:11.379 The U .S. decided it needed a physical spine 00:05:11.379 --> 00:05:13.980 to hold it together. I love that visual. Physical 00:05:13.980 --> 00:05:16.519 spine. But of course, that spine is made of road 00:05:16.519 --> 00:05:19.970 and roads eventually hit water. They do. Which 00:05:19.970 --> 00:05:22.920 brings us to the actual structure itself. We 00:05:22.920 --> 00:05:25.519 know why this massive federal road was built. 00:05:26.079 --> 00:05:28.399 Now let's look at the quirky reality of what 00:05:28.399 --> 00:05:30.480 actually got built on it. This is my favorite 00:05:30.480 --> 00:05:33.339 part. Because the transition from the grand sweeping 00:05:33.339 --> 00:05:37.639 idea of a unified nation down to the muddy physical 00:05:37.639 --> 00:05:42.000 reality of this specific bridge in Ohio is just 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:44.800 wild. It really is. So the blueprints for this 00:05:44.800 --> 00:05:46.939 bridge were drawn up by a man named Benjamin 00:05:46.939 --> 00:05:49.779 Latrobe. OK. He's a highly significant architect 00:05:49.779 --> 00:05:52.490 of the era. But the thing is, He didn't build 00:05:52.490 --> 00:05:55.430 a standard straight crossing here. He built a 00:05:55.430 --> 00:05:58.069 bridge shaped literally like the letter S. And 00:05:58.069 --> 00:05:59.550 here's where it gets really interesting, like 00:05:59.550 --> 00:06:01.769 Y and S shape. Yeah. The architectural records 00:06:01.769 --> 00:06:04.129 note the coordinates, they note the year 1828, 00:06:04.470 --> 00:06:06.689 and they list Latrobe as the mastermind. Right. 00:06:06.930 --> 00:06:09.449 It even gets categorized in modern times as a 00:06:09.449 --> 00:06:11.689 strange place, like in that oddball or hyo book. 00:06:11.709 --> 00:06:14.389 Right. But the records don't explicitly spell 00:06:14.389 --> 00:06:17.129 out the physics. We have to use some logical 00:06:17.129 --> 00:06:19.860 deduction here. based on the physical landscape 00:06:19.860 --> 00:06:23.120 to figure out why a brilliant architect would 00:06:23.120 --> 00:06:26.120 intentionally build a crooked bridge. Well, if 00:06:26.120 --> 00:06:27.800 you think about the materials they were working 00:06:27.800 --> 00:06:30.379 with in the 1820s, it starts to make perfect 00:06:30.379 --> 00:06:33.910 sense. OK, walk me through it. So. They are building 00:06:33.910 --> 00:06:36.209 with heavy stone masonry, right? They're building 00:06:36.209 --> 00:06:38.990 arches. Right. No steel beams back then. Exactly. 00:06:39.170 --> 00:06:42.629 No steel. So if you are trying to cross a rushing 00:06:42.629 --> 00:06:46.829 river with 1820 stone arches, you need that bridge 00:06:46.829 --> 00:06:49.610 to be as short and strong as humanly possible. 00:06:49.709 --> 00:06:52.269 Which means you have to cross the water perfectly 00:06:52.269 --> 00:06:54.430 perpendicular. Yes. Like a straight line across 00:06:54.430 --> 00:06:56.709 the absolute shortest possible gap. Right. You 00:06:56.709 --> 00:06:58.910 want a straight 90 degree angle across the current. 00:06:59.129 --> 00:07:02.209 What happens if the dirt roads leading up to 00:07:02.209 --> 00:07:04.529 the river don't meet the water at a perfect right 00:07:04.529 --> 00:07:07.610 angle? What if the road is winding along the 00:07:07.610 --> 00:07:10.170 riverbank, like parallel to the water? Oh, wow. 00:07:10.290 --> 00:07:12.569 OK, I see it now. You can't just build a diagonal 00:07:12.569 --> 00:07:15.050 stone bridge across a wide river. The water current 00:07:15.050 --> 00:07:16.910 would just destroy the angled arches, right? 00:07:17.129 --> 00:07:19.529 And the span would be way too long to support 00:07:19.529 --> 00:07:21.389 its own weight. That is exactly the problem. 00:07:21.449 --> 00:07:23.870 The physics just don't work for a diagonal stone 00:07:23.870 --> 00:07:28.290 arch. So Latrobe's solution is just pure pragmatic 00:07:28.290 --> 00:07:31.199 engine. Oh, right. You curve the road out over 00:07:31.199 --> 00:07:35.639 the water first, right, to get that perfect perpendicular 00:07:35.639 --> 00:07:38.060 street crossing over the main current. Oh, I 00:07:38.060 --> 00:07:40.459 get it. And then once you hit the other side, 00:07:40.500 --> 00:07:43.060 you have to curve the road back to reconnect 00:07:43.060 --> 00:07:45.060 with the path along the opposite bank. That's 00:07:45.060 --> 00:07:47.319 amazing. Right. So you curve out, you cross straight, 00:07:47.459 --> 00:07:50.720 you curve back, hence an S shape. That is brilliant. 00:07:50.759 --> 00:07:53.060 It's just an incredibly clever solution to a 00:07:53.060 --> 00:07:56.220 brutal geographic problem. Totally. But over 00:07:56.220 --> 00:07:58.680 time... As engineering evolved and we figured 00:07:58.680 --> 00:08:01.660 out how to build massive steel suspension bridges, 00:08:02.120 --> 00:08:04.379 they can cross at literally any angle. The modern 00:08:04.379 --> 00:08:07.500 stuff, yeah. Yeah. That original pragmatic reason 00:08:07.500 --> 00:08:10.360 for the S shape just kind of faded away. And 00:08:10.360 --> 00:08:12.939 what we're left with today is a structure that 00:08:12.939 --> 00:08:15.279 just looks totally bizarre to the modern eye. 00:08:15.759 --> 00:08:18.720 Exactly. It ceases to be just a functional bridge 00:08:18.720 --> 00:08:21.620 and it becomes a destination. It becomes an oddball 00:08:21.620 --> 00:08:25.089 cultural artifact. Right. Latrobe created something 00:08:25.089 --> 00:08:28.529 so visually distinct that it's remembered centuries 00:08:28.529 --> 00:08:30.810 later, not for its structural necessity, but 00:08:30.810 --> 00:08:33.730 just for its strangeness. A certified landmark 00:08:33.730 --> 00:08:36.909 in oddball Ohio. Which actually makes me wonder 00:08:36.909 --> 00:08:39.070 about the environment it was built in. Because 00:08:39.070 --> 00:08:41.710 S Bridge 2 doesn't exist in a vacuum. No, not 00:08:41.710 --> 00:08:43.909 at all. When you look at the other structures 00:08:43.909 --> 00:08:47.429 built in this exact same area, this wild pattern 00:08:47.429 --> 00:08:50.169 emerges. But what it actually took to build that 00:08:50.169 --> 00:08:52.929 physical spine we talked about. Muskingham County 00:08:52.929 --> 00:08:55.710 wasn't just home to one weird bridge. Oh, not 00:08:55.710 --> 00:08:57.730 even close. If we connect this to the bigger 00:08:57.730 --> 00:09:01.950 picture. the sheer concentration of very transportation 00:09:01.950 --> 00:09:05.090 infrastructure in this one county is it's standering. 00:09:05.330 --> 00:09:07.590 OK, let me just list some of the structures historically 00:09:07.590 --> 00:09:09.690 registered in this immediate area to give you 00:09:09.690 --> 00:09:11.710 the listener a sense of the chaos here. These 00:09:11.710 --> 00:09:15.269 do. OK, along with S Bridge to Muskingum County 00:09:15.269 --> 00:09:18.009 has the Y Bridge. It has the Dresden Suspension 00:09:18.009 --> 00:09:20.690 Bridge, the Salt Creek Covered Bridge. It has 00:09:20.690 --> 00:09:23.190 the Muskingum River, Loch Noma 10 and Canal. 00:09:23.210 --> 00:09:26.190 Yeah, it has the Muskingum River Navigation Historic 00:09:26.190 --> 00:09:29.850 District Freight Houses. rail depots, you name 00:09:29.850 --> 00:09:32.649 it. When you look at that list, you are basically 00:09:32.649 --> 00:09:36.110 looking at a fossil record of intense architectural 00:09:36.110 --> 00:09:37.929 problem solving. I was going to say, it sounds 00:09:37.929 --> 00:09:40.929 like a modern day crash test facility for infrastructure. 00:09:41.129 --> 00:09:43.429 It really does. Like you have engineers throwing 00:09:43.429 --> 00:09:46.289 every conceivable design at the landscape. S 00:09:46.289 --> 00:09:49.350 bridges, Y bridges, cover bridges, canals. It's 00:09:49.350 --> 00:09:52.029 like the Silicon Valley of 19th century civil 00:09:52.029 --> 00:09:54.809 engineering. I love that. And that sheer variety, 00:09:54.990 --> 00:09:57.129 it tells us that Muskingum County was an absolute 00:09:57.129 --> 00:09:59.889 nightmare to get across. Geography was just actively 00:09:59.889 --> 00:10:02.350 fighting the National Road. Oh, fighting it every 00:10:02.350 --> 00:10:05.029 step of the way. You have multiple rivers converging, 00:10:05.389 --> 00:10:08.830 uneven terrain, and this massive flow of westward 00:10:08.830 --> 00:10:10.649 traffic trying to punch its way through this 00:10:10.649 --> 00:10:12.750 one bottleneck. Let's talk about the Y Bridge 00:10:12.750 --> 00:10:14.830 for a second, because that one breaks my brain 00:10:14.830 --> 00:10:17.029 even more than the S Bridge. Oh, yeah. The Y 00:10:17.029 --> 00:10:19.370 Bridge is wild. A Y Bridge isn't just a crossing. 00:10:19.450 --> 00:10:22.269 It's literally an intersection over water. Right. 00:10:23.009 --> 00:10:26.730 over water, with horse -drawn wagons, no less. 00:10:27.230 --> 00:10:31.110 You are merging or splitting traffic while suspended 00:10:31.110 --> 00:10:34.710 above a rushing river. Imagine the engineering 00:10:34.710 --> 00:10:37.090 audacity required to even attempt that in the 00:10:37.090 --> 00:10:40.570 1800s. It paints such a vivid picture of the 00:10:40.570 --> 00:10:43.730 daily reality there. Like, the terrain was so 00:10:43.730 --> 00:10:46.110 stubborn and the traffic was so heavy, they couldn't 00:10:46.110 --> 00:10:48.330 even wait to get to solid ground to build an 00:10:48.330 --> 00:10:50.730 intersection. They had to put a traffic merge 00:10:50.730 --> 00:10:53.230 in the middle of the river. And if we connect 00:10:53.230 --> 00:10:55.490 this to the bigger picture of the local economy, 00:10:56.149 --> 00:10:58.309 a bottleneck like that changes everything. How 00:10:58.309 --> 00:11:01.470 so? Well, when a crossing is that difficult, 00:11:01.950 --> 00:11:04.570 traffic slows down, wagons back up. People get 00:11:04.570 --> 00:11:06.990 stuck waiting for their turn to navigate the 00:11:06.990 --> 00:11:09.250 S bridge or, you know, merge onto the Y bridge. 00:11:09.429 --> 00:11:10.990 Oh, right. And when people get stuck, they need 00:11:10.990 --> 00:11:13.250 places to sleep. Exactly. They need places to 00:11:13.250 --> 00:11:15.169 sleep. They need places to eat. They need places 00:11:15.169 --> 00:11:17.789 to drink. The infrastructure forces the economy 00:11:17.789 --> 00:11:20.860 into existence. Precisely. which perfectly explains 00:11:20.860 --> 00:11:23.000 the rest of the historical footprint in Muskingum 00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:25.000 County. Alongside all these well bridges, you 00:11:25.000 --> 00:11:27.419 have all these historical sites. You've got places 00:11:27.419 --> 00:11:30.460 like the Headley Inn, the Smith House and Farm, 00:11:30.879 --> 00:11:33.899 the Five Mile House, the Taverner Sears Tavern. 00:11:34.159 --> 00:11:36.679 There's even the Schauer -Linzer House and Brewery 00:11:36.679 --> 00:11:39.240 Complex. You can practically smell the wood smoke 00:11:39.240 --> 00:11:41.879 in the beer. You really can. This wasn't just 00:11:41.879 --> 00:11:44.419 some quiet road through the woods. It was this... 00:11:44.190 --> 00:11:48.149 teeming chaotic hub of weary travelers resting 00:11:48.149 --> 00:11:50.600 their horses before attempting these. bizarre 00:11:50.600 --> 00:11:54.200 river crossings. Yeah. And you also see a massive 00:11:54.200 --> 00:11:57.100 cluster of churches springing up alongside it 00:11:57.100 --> 00:12:00.159 all. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Mount Zion Presbyterian, 00:12:00.340 --> 00:12:02.840 St. James Episcopal, St. John's Lutheran, St. 00:12:02.879 --> 00:12:06.120 Thomas Aquinas. A whole community took root in 00:12:06.120 --> 00:12:08.679 the mud of this bottleneck. Wow. The difficulty 00:12:08.679 --> 00:12:11.700 of the terrain inadvertently created a thriving 00:12:11.700 --> 00:12:14.179 pioneer metropolis. OK, so we've established 00:12:14.179 --> 00:12:16.559 how deeply vital this entire county was in the 00:12:16.559 --> 00:12:19.779 1800s. It was the bleeding edge of American connectivity, 00:12:20.179 --> 00:12:22.460 the crash test facility for the nation's first 00:12:22.460 --> 00:12:25.460 highway. But I want to jump forward to the modern 00:12:25.460 --> 00:12:29.399 era to explore how we actually treat these structures 00:12:29.399 --> 00:12:32.990 today. Looking at the preservation timeline of 00:12:32.990 --> 00:12:35.429 Espers 2, it is honestly kind of jarring. It 00:12:35.429 --> 00:12:37.970 reveals a lot about our blind spots as a society. 00:12:38.210 --> 00:12:41.309 Yeah. OK, so it was built in 1828, designed by 00:12:41.309 --> 00:12:43.850 Benjamin Latrobe as part of the first federally 00:12:43.850 --> 00:12:46.649 financed highway. Right. Yet it wasn't officially 00:12:46.649 --> 00:12:49.649 added to the National Register of Historic Places 00:12:49.649 --> 00:12:55.710 until April 23, 1973. 1973. Yeah. It was given 00:12:55.710 --> 00:13:00.710 reference number 7300001513. So, what does this 00:13:00.710 --> 00:13:03.149 all actually mean for us today? It took almost 00:13:03.149 --> 00:13:06.309 150 years for this monumental piece of national 00:13:06.309 --> 00:13:08.990 infrastructure to get official federal historic 00:13:08.990 --> 00:13:11.269 protection. This raises an important question, 00:13:11.269 --> 00:13:13.409 I think, about how long it takes a society to 00:13:13.409 --> 00:13:15.370 actually recognize its own history. Yeah. We 00:13:15.370 --> 00:13:17.549 have this tendency to assume that because a structure 00:13:17.549 --> 00:13:20.129 is treated with reverence now, you know, it was 00:13:20.129 --> 00:13:21.990 always protected. Like it was always in a museum 00:13:21.990 --> 00:13:24.850 or something. Exactly. But for 145 years, Esper 00:13:24.850 --> 00:13:26.750 Jadisic was presumably just out there in the 00:13:26.750 --> 00:13:30.019 elements. Just a weird crooked road that Local 00:13:30.019 --> 00:13:32.299 commuters probably found annoying. Think about 00:13:32.299 --> 00:13:35.080 a local road you drive every day that has a bizarre 00:13:35.080 --> 00:13:37.360 frustrating curve in it. Ugh, I can think of 00:13:37.360 --> 00:13:40.990 a few. Right. Now imagine finding out a century 00:13:40.990 --> 00:13:43.629 from now that the nation's founding engineers 00:13:43.629 --> 00:13:47.230 designed that exact curve to solve some massive 00:13:47.230 --> 00:13:50.070 mathematical crisis. It's crazy to think about. 00:13:50.169 --> 00:13:52.250 That is essentially what was happening in Ohio. 00:13:52.850 --> 00:13:54.570 For over a century people were driving their 00:13:54.570 --> 00:13:57.529 wagons and eventually their early Model T Fords 00:13:57.529 --> 00:14:00.710 right over this masterpiece of 1820s problem 00:14:00.710 --> 00:14:03.450 -solving completely oblivious to what it represented. 00:14:03.629 --> 00:14:06.029 It is incredibly lucky it survived at all. Oh, 00:14:06.129 --> 00:14:10.230 yeah. That 145 -year gap highlights a terrifying 00:14:10.230 --> 00:14:12.610 vulnerability in our historical memory. I mean, 00:14:12.970 --> 00:14:15.570 how many other S bridges or Y bridges or local 00:14:15.570 --> 00:14:18.549 oddballs just didn't make it to 1973? We'll probably 00:14:18.549 --> 00:14:20.940 never know. Right. How many were paved over, 00:14:21.120 --> 00:14:23.740 blown up or torn down for scrapstone before the 00:14:23.740 --> 00:14:26.019 National Register of Historic Places even existed 00:14:26.019 --> 00:14:28.820 to protect them? Esprich II is a survivor. They 00:14:28.820 --> 00:14:30.659 had to wait a century and a half for someone 00:14:30.659 --> 00:14:33.019 with a clipboard to finally show up, look at 00:14:33.019 --> 00:14:35.000 this all ball pile of stones and say, wait a 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:36.960 minute, this is the anchor of the American highway 00:14:36.960 --> 00:14:39.240 system, which actually leads us perfectly into 00:14:39.240 --> 00:14:41.639 the final and maybe most fascinating aspect of 00:14:41.639 --> 00:14:44.360 this whole story. It's about how this 19th century 00:14:44.360 --> 00:14:47.360 physical network interacts with the 21st century 00:14:47.360 --> 00:14:50.080 digital network. Ah, the transition from stone 00:14:50.080 --> 00:14:53.059 to data. Yes, because despite its official preservation 00:14:53.059 --> 00:14:57.139 in 1973, its digital footprint today on Wikipedia 00:14:57.139 --> 00:15:01.620 is categorized as a stub. A stub? Yes. Underneath 00:15:01.620 --> 00:15:03.860 all the grand history, there is a literal digital 00:15:03.860 --> 00:15:06.840 tag on the page that reads, this article about 00:15:06.840 --> 00:15:09.580 a property in Muskingum County, Ohio on the National 00:15:09.580 --> 00:15:12.940 Register of Historic Places is a stub. You can 00:15:12.940 --> 00:15:15.159 help Wikipedia by adding missing information. 00:15:15.360 --> 00:15:18.049 Wow. It even files it into these hidden categories 00:15:18.049 --> 00:15:20.950 like Appalachian Ohio registered historic place 00:15:20.950 --> 00:15:24.190 stubs and Ohio bridge structure stubs. The irony 00:15:24.190 --> 00:15:26.669 there is just it's thick. It really is. You have 00:15:26.669 --> 00:15:28.809 a physical structure that represents the very 00:15:28.809 --> 00:15:31.230 first monumental effort by the federal government 00:15:31.230 --> 00:15:33.149 to connect the country, right? A total triumph 00:15:33.149 --> 00:15:36.279 of 19th century networking. Exactly, a networking 00:15:36.279 --> 00:15:39.720 pioneer. Yet on the ultimate network of the modern 00:15:39.720 --> 00:15:42.320 age, the internet, its record is incomplete. 00:15:42.600 --> 00:15:44.580 It's just a stub waiting for someone to care 00:15:44.580 --> 00:15:46.820 enough to fill in the blanks. The federal government 00:15:46.820 --> 00:15:51.559 in 1828 had the sheer audacity to fund a highway 00:15:51.559 --> 00:15:54.340 through the mountains. Yeah. And the modern internet 00:15:54.340 --> 00:15:56.799 has the audacity to try and categorize literally 00:15:56.799 --> 00:16:01.309 all of human knowledge. S -Bridge 2 somehow sits 00:16:01.309 --> 00:16:03.149 on the fringes of both. That's such a great way 00:16:03.149 --> 00:16:05.429 to put it. There was an oddball physical structure 00:16:05.429 --> 00:16:08.110 that confused travelers in Ohio, and now it's 00:16:08.110 --> 00:16:10.509 an oddball digital stub confusing algorithms 00:16:10.509 --> 00:16:13.570 on the internet. It is a profound reminder, honestly, 00:16:13.830 --> 00:16:16.129 that the project of building a network is never 00:16:16.129 --> 00:16:18.830 actually finished. Whether that network is made 00:16:18.830 --> 00:16:22.250 of heavy masonry spanning an Ohio River or lines 00:16:22.250 --> 00:16:25.350 of code organizing human history online, There 00:16:25.350 --> 00:16:27.610 are always gaps. Yeah, the categorization templates 00:16:27.610 --> 00:16:30.049 might slice and dice the bridge by its state, 00:16:30.269 --> 00:16:32.029 its completion year, and its reference number. 00:16:32.470 --> 00:16:34.789 But the narrative, the grueling reality of Benjamin 00:16:34.789 --> 00:16:37.009 Latrobe figuring out that S shape. The smells 00:16:37.009 --> 00:16:39.629 of the taverns, the daily life of the travelers. 00:16:40.210 --> 00:16:43.070 Yes. All that information is still basically 00:16:43.070 --> 00:16:45.370 missing from the digital record. You can help. 00:16:45.480 --> 00:16:48.480 by adding missing information. Exactly. It is 00:16:48.480 --> 00:16:50.700 literally a call to action. Yeah, it's asking 00:16:50.700 --> 00:16:53.820 the reader to step up and cry source the preservation 00:16:53.820 --> 00:16:56.799 of the bridge's digital memory, the exact same 00:16:56.799 --> 00:16:59.419 way local historians had to step up and advocate 00:16:59.419 --> 00:17:03.299 for its physical preservation back in 1973. Because 00:17:03.299 --> 00:17:06.140 we spend so much time hyper categorizing our 00:17:06.140 --> 00:17:08.920 world, you know, assigning coordinates and reference 00:17:08.920 --> 00:17:11.460 numbers that we sometimes just forget to write 00:17:11.460 --> 00:17:13.700 down the actual story. You really do. Which is 00:17:13.700 --> 00:17:16.079 exactly what we set out to do today. We started 00:17:16.079 --> 00:17:18.980 at the macro level, looking at the agonizingly 00:17:18.980 --> 00:17:21.980 slow travel of the early 1800s and the political 00:17:21.980 --> 00:17:24.400 miracle of the federally financed National Road. 00:17:25.119 --> 00:17:27.539 We zoomed in on the pragmatic, mysterious S -shaped 00:17:27.539 --> 00:17:30.829 design engineered by Benjamin Latrobe. We explored 00:17:30.829 --> 00:17:33.609 the chaotic crash test facility of Muskingum 00:17:33.609 --> 00:17:36.390 County where Y bridges merged traffic over Russian 00:17:36.390 --> 00:17:39.210 water and a booming pioneer economy sprang up 00:17:39.210 --> 00:17:41.650 to service the weary travelers. And finally we 00:17:41.650 --> 00:17:43.910 looked at its incredibly delayed preservation 00:17:43.910 --> 00:17:47.710 in 1973 and its current existence as a digital 00:17:47.710 --> 00:17:50.150 stub waiting for someone to finish telling its 00:17:50.150 --> 00:17:53.569 story. It is a massive narrative hiding inside 00:17:53.900 --> 00:17:56.660 a very small, very strange piece of infrastructure. 00:17:57.019 --> 00:17:59.619 It really is. And for you, the listener, I want 00:17:59.619 --> 00:18:02.640 you to remember this. Every time you merge onto 00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:06.319 a smooth, massive, modern interstate, every time 00:18:06.319 --> 00:18:09.720 you cruise at 65 miles an hour without even thinking 00:18:09.720 --> 00:18:11.799 about the terrain beneath your tires. You are 00:18:11.799 --> 00:18:15.099 participating in a legacy. Yes. And that legacy 00:18:15.099 --> 00:18:17.940 didn't start with perfect, clean lines of asphalt. 00:18:18.099 --> 00:18:20.460 It started with muddy, experimental, strange 00:18:20.460 --> 00:18:23.039 little bridges in places like Muskingum County. 00:18:23.130 --> 00:18:25.589 It started with the oddballs. And, you know, 00:18:25.589 --> 00:18:28.349 if a monument designed by the architect of America's 00:18:28.349 --> 00:18:30.410 first federal highway can still be reduced to 00:18:30.410 --> 00:18:33.690 a digital stub with missing information, it begs 00:18:33.690 --> 00:18:35.710 a really compelling question. What's it? What 00:18:35.710 --> 00:18:37.930 local historical marvels are sitting in your 00:18:37.930 --> 00:18:40.910 own hometown right now? I mean, what oddball 00:18:40.910 --> 00:18:43.490 structures, weird intersections or strange old 00:18:43.490 --> 00:18:45.990 buildings are you driving past every single day, 00:18:46.349 --> 00:18:48.490 quietly waiting for someone to notice them, figure 00:18:48.490 --> 00:18:50.329 out why they were built and finally fill in their 00:18:50.329 --> 00:18:50.970 missing history?