The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1881-10-29
CAN WE HAVE GOOD ROADS.


Now that the drought and summer are over,
and the fall rains have set in, the everlasting
CRIME returns, impossible roads, with their
baeful attendants, stagnatOn of business and
general discomfort and grumbling The ques-
ton recurs, Is there no remedy for this ever
returning evil? An Ottawa business man for.
merly a resident OF Union county, Ohio, and
remembering the excellent roads they now
have in county once famous tor Its mud and
eXcreable roads, recently wrote to a leading
citizen of that county asking him how the re.
form was brought about, and received the fol.
lowing reply, which contains SO many excel.
lent suggestions that are practicable here that
we lay the letter before our readers:
RECHwOoD, OHIO, Oct 10, 1881
FRIEND BEEN Your enquiry as to gray.
ell roads Is before me. We have several laws
under which we operate. Some localities pre-
fer one and some another. In Union county
we operate under the "two mile assessment
Law" Rev. Stat, Chap. s, Sec 1929. Under
this law the commissioners Of the county are
required to appoint viewers to view and report
upon the feasibility of any proposed free pike,
upon the petition Of five or more land owners
on the proposed roads. The viewers report
the facts in the case and usually grant that the
Improvement shall be made They also make
an estimate of the expense of the improve
ment and of all the lands benefited by said
improvement and within two miles of the
same.
This brings the matter before the commits
sloners in al official way. They then set
day to revise the return of land in the district
as made by the viewers. If majority OF the
resident landowners have signed a petition
for the improvement it is ordered to be blilt,
otherwise 1t fails.
The next step Is to appoint a surveyor or en-.
glneer, who goes on the ground and makes a
plan and specification and how the road Is to
be built. The next step Is to advertise it tor
sale in sections first, then as u whole, the low.
est and best bidder to be the buyer.
The next step Is to appoint three disinterest-
ed men to assess the expense OF constructing
the road upon the land named IN the schedule
as reported by the viewers. This is the most
difficult part of the business, and requires good
sense and patience in the assessors.
We usually find it to cost about $4,000 per
mile; and tins is put mainly on the front lots
or farms next to the road, and in some !nstanc-
es is rs high as five dollars per acre. but usual
ly not more than $3.50 to 3d. The lands are
assessed less and less as they reCede from the
pike, until il often comes as low as ten cents
per acre, so that those at the greatest distance
often go in for the pike while those in front
oppose 1t because 1t costs so much. But under
the law one vote counts as much as another,
and we usually carry the road without difficult
ty. When the road Is completed it is turned
over to the public to be kept in repair as other
roads out of the public funds.
This Is perhaps sufficient as to the manner
of building the pike.
You would like to know how it pans out
does it pay? Yes, IN the fullest and strongest
sense
You know Union county of old-you have
waded in mud to your knees You have rode
on horseback along some of our roads when
two miles per hour was good time to make.
Now YOU can start from Redwood In any d.
rcctlOn and drive eight or ten miles per hour
at any time of the year No such thing as
mud is thought of; it does not enter into our
calculations. Formerly we used TO have to
raise grain and do all the hauling to market
in the dry season, and then remain idle all
winter Now we do our hauling manly in
the winter, and can haul so to 100 bushels OF
corn or wheat at load any time of the year
Plenty of men live by hauling the year round.
Wood, saw logs, straw and all such things
have become valuable, because they can be
handled in the winter when we used to be idle
All our Todus are SiaNoicu' E'ei oouy uSs'
paid high tax, but everybody is pleased. We
have changed this once Godforsaken country
to the very garden of the state. have heard
men who had seen the roads OF the old as well
as the new world say that Union county, Ohio,
has the finest roads in the world. And yet we
are poor compared to La Sale county, Ill.
| am as well acquainted with the land and
the farms about Ottawa as | am here outside
of my own neighbors. And from what know
of the situation there and here let me say, if
you build one pike on our plan and get good
one, It will be the leaven that will leaven the
whole lump, and that soon all the better coun-
tics in Illinois will be as well piked as Union