Quotation for the day: Daniel B. Klein

The notion of private highways, which would seem fantastic to our parents, was commonplace to our great-great-grandparents. Initiated in the 1790s in the growing Republic, these roads stimulated commerce, settlement, and population. During the nineteenth century more than 2,000 private companies financed, built, and operated toll roads. States turned to private initiative for much the same reason they are doing so today: fiscal constraints and insufficient administrative manpower.

Daniel B. Klein, "Private Highways in America, 1792-1916," Freeman, vol. 44, no. 2 (Foundation for Economic Education, February 1994); online edition here.