(MONEY Magazine) – Deep in upstate New York's Adirondack Mountains, two miles east of the town of Newcomb, there's a roadside plaque on Highway 28 N. It's a historical marker designating the spot where Theodore Roosevelt received the news that President William McKinley, who'd been shot by an anarchist assassin eight days earlier, had died. It was here that Roosevelt, who was McKinley's Vice President, effectively became the 26th President of the United States.

The Roosevelt plaque is my favorite historical marker, not only because the story behind it is so dramatic (Roosevelt had been sojourning in the mountains when he got word that McKinley's condition had worsened and was frantically racing back to the President's bedside when he learned of his death), but also because it transforms a history-book anecdote into a real-world event. It's one thing to read about this, but I assure you it's much more affecting to stand on the spot where it took place.

That's why travel and history make such a good pairing: Many of us find history more compelling if we're directly experiencing the places where it happened. Fact is, I wasn't much interested in history during high school or college, but travel has changed that. My enjoyment of a place's present, I've found, is exponentially enhanced by an understanding of its past, and as a result my interests in travel and history have fed each other. All of which explains why I'm so fond of historical markers.

Details are sketchy, but the first state to post roadside historical markers appears to have been Virginia in 1927. In retrospect, this looks like an extremely prescient move, anticipating the explosion of automobile-based tourism that would follow in the ensuing decades. Today every state has a marker program, creating a composite history curriculum along America's roadways.

Many of the markers, including the Roosevelt plaque, appear on otherwise unremarkable stretches of road, reminding us that extraordinary things can happen in ordinary places and that history is all around us. And with most major chapters in American history commemorated in historical parks, roadside markers offer a chance to appreciate history's lesser-known details, whether you happen to be on a long drive or just tooling around town. Here's some information on seven more that are worth a detour, from many different regions of the country.

Pony Express terminus (1000 Second St., Sacramento). Although it existed for less than two years, the Pony Express represents one of the legendary chapters in America's wild West. The building on which this marker is mounted was the Express' western terminus. It was here that the first eastward Pony Express journey began, on April 4, 1860. A mere 18 months later the Express would be finished--made obsolete by the completion of the transcontinental telegraph.

Dueling grounds (Alt. U.S. 1, just north of Fort Lincoln Cemetery, Brentwood, Md.). When Washington, D.C.'s political bigwigs get in a snit nowadays, they just hold another press conference to denounce the opposition and then have lunch with a lobbyist. Back in the 1800s, however, political feuds often ended in duels, more than 50 of which took place on the site of this marker, just outside Washington's city limits in what is now a municipal park. Among the more notable antagonists were Commodores Stephen Decatur (famed conqueror of the Barbary pirates) and James Barron, who faced off on March 22, 1820, a meeting that proved fatal to Decatur. Although Congress outlawed the practice in 1839, duels continued here for another two decades.

Last Confederate capital (Sutherland Ave. at Main St., Danville, Va.). Many people don't realize that although Richmond was the Confederate capital for most of the Civil War, the seat of the Confederacy was first located in Montgomery and later moved several times. The last stop was a villa-style Italianate country house on the edge of downtown Danville, which is still standing at the site of this marker. Here Jefferson Davis presided from April 3-10, 1865, when news of Lee's surrender to Grant--which had taken place on April 9 at Appomattox--essentially ended the war.

Slave cabins (near the intersection of Hwy. 1 and Major Lane, Oscar, La.). Although plantation slave cabins are troubling reminders of a difficult period in our country's past, they do provide an invaluable window into antebellum history. Most southern states have only a handful of cabins remaining, but Louisiana has about 50. Two are at the site of this marker, about 25 miles west of Baton Rouge. An adjacent cabin, no longer standing, was the birthplace in 1933 of the noted African-American writer Ernest J. Gaines, author of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and A Lesson Before Dying.

Last cattle drive (U.S. 60, White Deer, Texas). The great Texas cattle drives, in which cowboys directed huge herds toward northern stockyards, were a staple of the state's culture through the late 1800s, when railroads became a more efficient way to move cattle. The last of the great Texas Panhandle drives, organized by the N-N Ranch in 1892, began at the site of this marker, about 40 miles east of Amarillo. The flat, empty land here calls to mind the Lone Star cliche about wide-open spaces, but it no doubt took every bit of that space to accommodate the 25,000 cattle and the 100 cowboys who were driving them all the way to Montana--a Texas-size operation, to be sure.

Birthplace of Flag Day (Hwy. 1, half a mile east of Waubeka, Wis.). Many things were invented or made their debut in Wisconsin, including the typewriter, the snowmobile, the ice cream sundae and the Ringling Bros. Circus (all of which are commemorated by their own historical markers). But none had a more unlikely genesis than Flag Day, which was first observed on June 14, 1885, in a quaint one-room schoolhouse that still stands near this marker just outside Milwaukee. The flag honored that day was just 10 inches high and was mounted in a bottle on teacher Bernard J. Cigrand's desk. After turning Flag Day into his lifelong crusade, Cigrand eventually persuaded President Woodrow Wilson to proclaim the national observance of Flag Day in 1916.

The Fetterman Massacre (U.S. 87, 17 miles north of Buffalo, Wyo.). American Indians figure prominently in Wyoming's past, never more dramatically than on Dec. 21, 1866, when Lt. Col. William J. Fetterman and 80 others were ambushed by hundreds of Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapahoe warriors. Fetterman, a braggart who had boasted that he could defeat the entire Sioux nation singlehandedly, disobeyed orders by pursuing his foes across a vulnerable ridge. His entire party was killed at the site of this marker, a barren, rocky plain approximately two hours west of Devil's Tower.

No nationwide guidebook to historical markers is available. There are several, however, that cover individual states (among them Louisiana, Montana, Texas and Virginia). In order to find them, all you have to do is type "historical markers" into the search page at Amazon .com. After all, with tens of thousands of markers out there, we can all have our own favorites.

Paul Lukas hopes one day to do something worthy of a historical marker (as long as it doesn't involve duels or massacres).