The crossroads city

The Trading Path

Before there was a town, tradition holds, there was a crossing — two trading paths meeting at what is now the corner of Trade and Tryon. In this arcade version you walk the long path south with an eight-slot pack, bartering with the travelers and camps the trail brings, and the crossing near the middle of the run is where the best deals are worked. The run scores on what you're worth when you arrive.

Pack: 0/8 · Worth now: 0Best arrival: 0

The Trading Path

Walk the long path south with an eight-slot pack, trading with whoever the trail brings. Twelve meetings, one crossing — the camp where the two paths meet works the best deals on the trail. Arrive worth more than you set out with.The map of this game is tradition, dated about 1700— hedged here the way the guide's timeline hedges it:“Two Native American trading paths crossed at what is now the corner of Trade and Tryon Streets in Charlotte -- an east-west route (part of the network linking Cherokee territory to the Iroquois, later called the Great Trading Path) and the north-south route that settlers moving down the Great Wagon Road from Pennsylvania and Virginia would follow -- and a small trading settlement grew up at this crossroads before Charlotte was formally founded.”“The Great Trading Path (also called the Occaneechi Path) was a colonial-era trade route running roughly 800 miles, connecting Virginia's Fort Henry (Petersburg) south through the North Carolina Piedmont to Cherokee and Catawba territory; in North Carolina it crossed the Flat, Little, Eno, Haw, Uwharrie, and Yadkin rivers before turning south at the Trading Ford (near present-day Spencer) toward the Catawba and Waxhaw villages below Charlotte.”

Every move is a labeled button — fully playable by keyboard. Trade when the worth gained beats the worth given; walk on when it doesn't.

The true story under the game

The guide's timeline dates this story about 1700, and holds it at tradition tier — so the game does too. The Great Trading Path (also called the Occaneechi Path) ran roughly 800 miles from Virginia's Fort Henry south through the North Carolina Piedmont, crossing the Flat, Little, Eno, Haw, Uwharrie and Yadkin rivers before turning south at the Trading Ford. Two trading paths crossed at what is now the corner of Trade and Tryon Streets, and a small trading settlement grew up at that crossroads before Charlotte was formally founded. The state's historical marker L-36 records the goods that moved on the route — guns, gunpowder, knives, jewelry, blankets, hatchets — and in January 1767 the crossing got its street grid: the east-west trading path became Trade Street, and the Great Wagon Road became Tryon Street.

The crossroads era, year by year

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