 The steep bluff behind the West Brownsville tongue provided two climbable ascents which became early U.S. roads; the more southerly heading nearly due west climbing steadily upwards over a stretch, an old wagon road, and later the National Road following the westward extension of Nemacolin's Path up to and through the outlier neighborhood known as Malden from a river-shallows area known as a ford to Amerindians, a landscape feature which attracted settlers heading west on the Emigrant Trail once known as Nemacolin's Path, then the Cumberland Road and then renamed as the 'National Road'.The other ascent would allow PA Route 88 to climb out of the valley where the road cut across several loops of the Monongahela to California.Sundered by the county boundaries running down the center of the river, West Brownsville economically was integrated with cross-river Brownsville by a ferry dating back into the early 1800s when Brownsville became a riverboat building and outfitting center.