The Tenpenny Files with Brady Crytzer

What most Americans were taught about George Washington leaves out what he was actually trying to stop. Brady Crytzer brings that missing piece forward in The National Road: George Washington and America’s First Highway West, a book Dr. Tenpenny keeps coming back to.

This book holds your attention for a reason. It connects parts of early American history that are usually separated and exposes how incomplete the standard version really is.

Washington was watching a divide form between the East and the western territories. The distance created tension. Western settlers operated outside the reach of consistent authority. That reality showed up fast after independence. The Whiskey Rebellion made it visible. Resistance followed federal taxation. Trust between the government and those living beyond the mountains was already strained.

Native nations were being forced off land that made expansion possible. Control of territory remained constant. Movement across that territory became a point of leverage.

The National Road came out of that pressure. It was built to hold the country together. Without a physical connection between the Potomac River and the Ohio River, there was no guarantee the western territories would stay aligned with the East.

Brady Crytzer tracks how that idea moved through resistance and into execution through financial strategy led by Albert Gallatin. The road opened movement and trade. It shaped how settlement expanded across the Midwest. It established a model for federal infrastructure that still exists.

This interview gives you access the book cannot. Dr. Tenpenny asks the questions that come up when you read this work and want clarity on the decisions and the consequences behind them.

The book carries the full depth of research. It holds the documentation and detail that cannot fit into one conversation. It belongs in your library if you want a grounded understanding of how this country was held together at a point where it could have come apart.

Meet our Guest:

Brady J. Crytzer is the winner of the 2023 Judge Robert K. Woltz History Award. A specialist of the Frontier History of North America, Crytzer is an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Revolution and regularly appears on Fox News, NBC Peacock, C-Span, and Sirius XM. In 2026, Crytzer was named a Fellow at the Royal Society of Arts in London. His work has been featured in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Sirius XM, and USA Today.

His book The Whiskey Rebellion: A Distilled History of an American Crisis was listed as one of “Ten Books to Read” by The Wall Street Journal in 2023.

Website:

Book: https://amzn.to/3OVLiMX