 US 11 is the descendant of a trail blazed from Pennsylvania following the establishment of Evan Watkins's ferry across the Potomac River at the mouth of Conococheague Creek in 1744.This trail became part of the Great Wagon Road from Philadelphia south through the Great Appalachian Valley to Virginia and North Carolina.In the center of the Hagerstown Valley along the trail, German immigrant Jonathan Hager laid out his namesake town in 1762.