Before there was a town of Grantsville, an east-west Indian trail known as Nemacolin’s path traversed its future site. Travelers on the trail were following the seasonal movements of the game they hunted for sustenance. When European colonists came to the area as hunters and traders and transients moving west, the Indian trail became a pack-horse path. In 1755, a contingent of General Braddock’s army directed by a young George Washington upgraded the path to accommodate the wagon trains that now were rumbling westward. In 1806, Congress approved construction of the National Pike, which generally followed the historical route taken by the Indians and the pioneers over previous centuries. (This was the first federally financed highway.)

The National Pike served faithfully—with ongoing bouts of maintenance— until 1933 when the route was straightened and significantly upgraded to become U.S. Route 40. Sections of the National Pike in Western Maryland that were bypassed by the “straightening” process are still in service as Alternate (or Scenic) Route 40; one of those sections passes through Grantsville, where it is called Main Street. Ironically, the “new” U.S. 40 now has surrendered its route and identity in Western Maryland to Interstate 68, which passes just to the south of Grantsville.

There are many historic landmarks in Grantsville: the Casselman River Bridge (1813); the Casselman Hotel (1824); Penn Alps, an 1818 stagecoach stop on the National Pike and now a restaurant and craft shop; the Spruce Forest Artisan Village,which includes restored log cabins, school houses, a church, and other rustic buildings that house working artisans. Just to the east of Penn Alps is Stanton’s Mill, one of the oldest grist mills in Garrett County, dating back to 1797.

Complementing the outstanding concentration of historic structures in Grantsville are park and nature areas, specialty shops for crafts and antiques, and, a quarter mile to the north, the well known Yoder’s Country Market.