Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1904-04-07
LOCATION OF ROADS
ENGINEER c. r. ALLEN READS IN
TEREsTING PAPER BEFORE
GOOD ROADS ASSOCIATION.
The Location of Roads Considered An
Important Feature in the Securing
OF Good Rosds-Second Paper on
Improvement and Drainage.

The Location, Improvement and
Drainage of the Common Dirt Road"
was the subject of an interesting and
valuable paper read before the meet
ing of the Wapello County Good Roads
association at the court house last
Saturday afternoon. AS this subject
q is one that is attracting the attention
OF both the residents of the city and of
the country all over the state of Iowa
and in fact, all over the more highly
developed states Of the union and as
Mr.. Allen is from practical experience
and training and from long study and
investigation. unusually we'll qualified
to speak in an authoritative manner
upon this subject, the. entire paper will
be given to the readers of the Courier
The subject is treated in two divi-
sions, the first paper discussing the
Location of Highways" and the Sec
ond The Improvement of Dirt Roads"
In the present issue is published the
paper upon "The Location of High
ways" The second paper will follow
in an early issue.
The paper is as follows:
Much has been written of late in re-
lation to the improvement of our pub
lie highways; some writers advocating
paving, some lnacadanizing, others
the use of gravel. / will not enter in
to a discussion here as to the merits
of any of these systems Any of them
are good and practicable, where the
material for construction is close at
hand. 1 have noticed that such roads
are numerous only where the material
abounds, and that, too, along the lines
of roads to be built.
This is true as to this country and
Canada, and I have no doubt but it
holds good elsewhere. 1t is we'll known
that such materials do not exist in
many of the Iowa counties, which fact
alone will make such roads very ex-
pensive. The better the soil the poor
err the roads, is a trite saying. Iowa is
noted for good soil, therefore for poor
roads.
Is there anything that we can do to
improve the condition of our dirt
rods? To my mind there is one i'm
portant factor that seems to have been
lost sight of, especially in late years,
that is the location of roads upon the
proper ground.
1t shall be my aim in this article to
deal with this phase of the subject.
First believing that ON account of the
opposition to the great expenditure ne
cessary to pave or macadamize our
country roads that it will be some time
before any great amount of such work
will be done; in the meantime we
should look ahead, for it is only ques-
ton of time until some of our trunk
roads will be SO improved. think ev-
cry engineer in the state will quite
agree with me, that the very first move
to be made will be to secure the right
of way for some leading road, The
sooner this matter is put into the
hands of a competent engineer. in each
community, the better. There are few
river counties to which this article will
not apply with the same force as to the
interior counties.
I have had occasion in my business
to copy the road records of about
eighty counties in the western states,
of which number twenty are in Iowa.
Here I found that the first principles
of road making had been ignored. Even
animals display more engineering skill
in the trend of their trails or paths,
than we have in locating our roads.
When this western country was new,
as the early settlers all know, there
were trails made by the Indians and
early travellers across the plains run