In an effort to improve overland transportation, the Republic of Texas Congress authorized the Central National Road in Feb. 1844. The roadway was to be 30 feet wide and cleared of stumps over 12 inches high. A survey team led by Major George W. Stell platted the route from near the mouth of Elm Fork on the Trinity River in present downtown Dallas, northeast to Kiomatia on the Red River. The highway linked a road leading south to Austin and San Antonio with a U.S. military highway extending north to St. Louis from Fort Towson in present Oklahoma. Running east from Dallas, the Central National Road turned northeast to cross the area that is now Rockwall County. Portions of FM 740, known locally as Ridge Road, follow the historic route. The earliest Rockwall County pioneers settled near the road about 1846. Sterling R. Barnes located his homestead about two miles south of the present site of Rockwall, and John O. Heath settled near the crossing of the East Fork of the Trinity River. The towns of Heath, originally named "Black Hill" and later "Willow Springs," and Rockwall, the county seat, were founded along the highway. (1977)