[1] This first military road was a beginning of government planning for overland travel, which eventually led Wisconsin, first as a territory and later as a state, and its localities to finance its own system of roadways for various purposes.

Financed by Congressional action in 1832 and constructed between 1835 and 1837,[5] the first military road in Wisconsin Territory connected three forts.

[7] The 1973 work The History of Wisconsin described the road as "little more than a lane through the timber and a pathway over the prairie, with streams bridged and swamps ditched, the road was crude and often impassable; but it nevertheless filled the important objective of traversing Wisconsin from east to west".

An actual 123-foot (37 m) segment of the road in its original state is also preserved in Fond du Lac County,[11] It is located on farmland purchased by Albert and Martha Raube in 1911; Raube Road was listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

Wisconsin Highway 55 east of Lake Winnebago is also called Military Road in some of the communities it passes through.