Old Mine Road is a road in New Jersey and New York said to be one of the oldest continuously-used roads in the United States of America. At a length of 104 miles, it stretches from the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area to the vicinity of Kingston, New York.
Among the theories regarding the early history of the road, it is traditionally believed that Dutch miners began construction of the road in the 17th century in order to transport copper ore from the Pahaquarry Copper Mine along the Delaware River in Pahaquarry Township, New Jersey to Esopus, New York along the Hudson River in Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. Many historians now discount much of this folk lore. Starting in the late 17th century, Dutch settlement began along the course of the road,in the Kingston, NY area. The road follows roughly the course of the later Delaware and Hudson Canal for its northern half, and the Delaware River in its southern half through the western edge of Sussex County and northern Warren County in northwestern New Jersey.
The road exists today, and although much of its length in New York has been modernized, widened and incorporated into US 209, its length in New Jersey as the "Old Mine Road" is largely undeveloped as it travels through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. The road still retains much of its historical and rural charm. Historic sites in both states assert the area's Dutch colonial heritage through the preservation of several homes, farms and churches.
Nobody knows how old the narrow road paralleling the banks of the Delaware River in northwesternNew Jersey known as Old Mine Road might be. It was an Indian path before white settlers arrived in the late 17th century.
The 40-mile-long New Jersey portion of the road is little changed since Dutch miners used it to transport iron ore from the Catskills in upstate New York to Delaware Water Gap across the river in Pennsylvania, the nexus of what would become the tourist hub known as the Poconos.
Old Mine Road is mostly gravel and barely wide enough for two cars coming from opposite directions to pass each other, and it is so historic that it is on the National Register of Historical Places. But many centuries of unfettered access came to a sudden end late last year when padlocked gates went up.
