The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1904-06-24
Will Be Received July End, Macadam-
ling Bids jure 23rd.
Some Of the Principal Points in Spec
fications for the Work.
Payments Made to Cont actors When
Assessments Come In.
Proposed Improvements Will Give En-
ployment to Many.
From Fridays Daily.

From Fridays Daily.
The board of public works will receive
bids for the matchmaking of Fifth street
on Thursday, June 23d, at p. M, and
bids for the paving of Front, jackson,
South Broad and Lincoln streets with as
phalt on Saturday, July I'd at 2 p. m.
The specifications have been prepared,
and some of them, at least, have been
fled with city recorder. The specifca
tions for the improvement of Fifth
street provide that it shall be curbed,
guttered and boulevarded from Hickory
to Madison avenue, and macadamized
from Hickory to Spring street. A combi-
nation cement curb and gutter will be
put in. The macadam is to be nine
inches thick, and composed of three lay
ers, each three inches thick. Each layer
is to be rolled down and is to have fin
er stone than the one below it. On top
of all, stone dust will be placed and
washed in to cement the whole together.
The four blocks from Spring street to
Madison avenue is not to be macadamiz-
ed. The driveway will be thirty feet
wide the entire distance.
The driveway on South Broad and
Lincoln streets will be thirty feet wide,
and the asphalt will be one and half
inches thick, the same as on the por-
ton of Broad street now paved. The
only difference between the new i'm
provement and the old will be that the
stone curb is to be reset wherever there
is any, but where there is none, then
cement curb and gutter will be put in,
the same as in the old improvement.
On Front and jackson streets, the
asphalt will be two inches thick, laid on
six inches of concrete with filler, the
same as on Broad street. On Front
street and on jackson between Front
and Second streets there will be twelve
foot brick cutters. Between Second
and the alley back of the postoffice the
cutters will be seven feet wide, and be-
tween the alley and Broad street the
cutters will be five feet wide. The as
phalt will be uniformly thirty two feet
wide, the difference in the width of the
cutters being accounted for by the dis
lance the curb sets out.
The brick cutters will be laid on six
inches of concrete with a layer of sand
over an inch and half thick. A &C.
ment filler will be used to hold the brick
firmly together.
Payment for the work on all of the
streets is to be made on the following
basis: The contractor is to receive his
pay as fast as the assessments are col
lected, and the city's portion when the
taxes have been collected. This arrange
ment will probably prove little more
expensive, but it is expected to shut out
the possibility of an injunction on that
point.
The board of public works does not
intend to require house connections to be
made before the pavement is laid, but if
property owners want to make them
first it will be less expensive than after
wards, as then they will be made by
tunnelling.
1t is expected that injunction proceed
ings will be begun by someone before the
bids are opened, in an endeavor to pre-
vent the work being done, and it is
thought that perhaps the work may be
delayed.
If the injunction proceedings is not
successful, it is expected that the work
will make things lively in Mankato the
remainder of the year. 1t will require
the service of all of the teamsters and
laborers in the city, at good wages, to
put the streets in shape for the paving
and to haul the stone from the quarries.
A large force of men will be put to work
quarrying the stone for the concrete
foundation, and twenty-five or thirty
more in the stone crusher. Numerous
other people will be employed, and a
large part of the money paid out will be
spent in this city, filling the channels
of trade, enriching the laboring men and
the merchant both. And still there are
said to be some people who are oppos-
ed to the improvement and who would
rather spend money to prevent it than to
help pay for it.