Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1880-06-23
ROoFED COUNTRY ROADS.

To large extent in the South and
Southwest the highways are of two
distinct sorts-in local parlance, turn-
pixies and mud roads.
The former title covers the main
State roads, often constructed with
great care cost, and unusually macada-
mized. The latter includes the great
majority of country roads; and Tor
nine months or more every year the
name is exactly descriptive of their
character. They are emphatlcally
mud roads, and the mud is deep and
tenacious.
Plank roads are sometimes tried
where lumber is cheap, but they rest
under the disadvantage of being ex-
pensive, and they are neither durable
nor easily kept in repair. Accordingly
mud roads predominate, and the COM
munities possessing them are little
given to social or commercialintercourse
with neirhbors save during the brief pc
RODS when the mud is dry and the
wheeling passably good.
An exception to this rule appears in
Bosier Parish, Louisiana, where an at
tempt has been made to keep an inn
portant earth road dry and usable by
the novel device of roofing it, so as to
keep off the rain. The first stretch OF
covered road on this plan runs from
Red Chute Bridge, Louisiana, four
miles across Red River bottom, near
Shreveport. The idea originated
with ]. D Watkins, of Shreveport,
and, as is the usual fate of new ideas,
it aroused no little popular ridicule.
Judge Watkins was not man to be
laughed down. Obtaining a State
charter for his enterprise he began to
build the road. His opponents COM
planned that he was obstructing the
parish road, and attempted to stop the
works; but ample and lawful room
having been given for the parish road
their opposition came to nothing. 1t is
now four years since the work was be-
gun, and Mr.. J. S. Williams, of Shrieve-
port. who has been connected with the
enterprise from the beginning, informs
us that the road is complete success.
At the time of his writing, in March,
while the uncovered roads were axle
deep in many places with stiff mud,
the shed roads was firm and dry.
In building the road, the bed, lS
feet wide, was thrown up just enough
to keep out the surface water; and
over it was put roof of plank five
eighth inch thick, the planks being IL
inches wide and 20 feet long. Cy-
press from the neighboring swamp is
used for posts, and roughly sawed
timber for frame work. By means OF
an ingenious platform mounted on a
common two-horse wagon and support
ing light framework, four men easily
put up 20 sections, of 90 feet each, a
day. The cost of the road was about
$3,5OO mile, with lumber at 81 a
hundred feet, labor 81 day, posts l2a
cents each, earthwork 20 cents cubic
yard, and nails cents pound. The
advantages of the road arises from its
cheapness, as compared with any other
style of road possible there, its dura-
bility, and its unvarying serviceable-
ness. The native clay soil, when kept
dry, makes q better roadbed than
either wood or stone, and the road is
easily kept in repair. The wagons do
not touch the woodwork, and the roof
will last FIVE times as long as plan ks
laid upon the damp earth. Though
the sides are not enclosed, the rain
does not drive in enough to make the
roadbed muddy. much less wash it
In short the practical test of the road,
on the score of cheapness and efficiency
has been so satisfactory that the r.di.
cule and opposition it first awakened
have been overcome, and other roads
on the same plan are about to be con.
structed.