By Linda Tancs
Maryland’s first (and last standing) toll house on America’s first federally-funded road (the National Road) established Cumberland as the “Gateway to the West.” There the road cuts through the Narrows in LaVale, a spectacular 1,000-foot breach between Will’s and Haystack Mountains. LaVale’s Toll Gate House is a two-story brick structure built in the 1800s with seven sides, including a columned porch extending around the five outer sides of the polygonal portion. At the top is a small, non-functional cupola. Now on the National Register of Historic Places, you can peer inside the toll house. A historic plaque outside indicates fees for wagons, animals and pedestrians to use the road.
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