America’s First Highway | The National Road, National Geographic: Friday Night Band Concert

An audience with lawn chairs and blankets listens to Friday night summer concerts in the town square on Main Street in Marshall, Illinois.  The multi-generational Marshall City Band plays John Phillips Sousa marches and other music from the brightly lit, nineteenth-century bandstand after a weekly pie sale.When the concert ends, fans in their cars that are parked on the street toot their horns in appreciation. Marshall was officially organized in 1835, eight years after the National Road entered the eastern Illinois community.