The Walton Road

William Walton won permission from Governor William Blount in 1795 to cut a road from the junction of the Cumberland and Caney Fork Rivers to Brotherton, where it met Avery's Trace. The 1801 extension, officially the Cumberland Turnpike, ran over a hundred miles. It was to be fifteen feet wide and free of stumps, with bridges or causeways over streams, mile markers every three miles, and tollgates and stands, as inns were called. In the 1920s, U.S. 70N was built on top of the old road in parts of western Putnam County.

What the plaque says

The Walton Road Completed 1801, this road ran from Southwest to the junction of Caney Fork with Cumberland River, connecting East Tennessee with the Cumberland Settlements. Its engineer was Capt. William Walton, who had a Revolutionary grant near its northwestern terminus. It followed the general course of this highway hereabouts.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cookeville Depot Museum — 2.7 mi
  The 1909 Tennessee Central Railroad depot in Cookeville's west side, now a museum with a model of the town in 1955 and a steam engine in the yard.
• Burgess Falls State Park — 6.9 mi
  A day-use park on the Falling Water River, where a short trail passes three smaller falls on its way to a drop of more than 130 feet into a limestone gorge.
• Cummins Falls State Park — 8.7 mi
  A 75-foot waterfall and swimming hole on the Blackburn Fork, saved from a housing development in 2011 and opened as Tennessee's 54th state park.
• Rock Island State Park — 23 mi
  A park where the Collins, Rocky and Caney Fork rivers meet at the head of Center Hill Lake, with a gorge of waterfalls below a 1917 dam and the remains of a cotton-mill town.

More markers nearby

• Putnam County's Only Public Execution — 2.5 mi
• Darwin School — 2.6 mi
• Capshaw School — 2.9 mi
• Israel Putnam 1717 - 1790 — 2.9 mi