The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1906-03-14
Nuts for the Improvement Club to
Crack.

Nuts for the Improvement Club to
Crack.
Editor Herald: notice in your
paper of March 9th that one man who
claims he looked over the paving
proposition in Southern California
says that Walla Walla has just de-
cided upon paving her streets with a
combination of crude petroleum and
fine gravel or crushed basaltc rock
The gentleman is entirely mistak-
en-. During the last two years Walla
Walla has laid several miles of btu
lithic pavement and is engaged in
laying several miles more this year
1t is 50 much better than any combi-
nation of oil with gravel or powd-
cred rock or asphaltum or what is
ordinarily called concrete that Mayor
Gilbert Hunt personally told me that
he wants to be mayor of Walla Walla
just long enough to finish paving the
streets with bitulithic
The Republic says that this pave
ment has proven unsatisfactory in
some places but the editor is in
error about that. 1t is the other kinds
of pavements that are unsatisfactory
To the casual observer all concrete,
asphaltum and bitulithic pavements
look alike.
The bitulithic is supplanting all
other pavements in country towns
and cities from the Atlantic to the
Pacific 1t is constructed by Warren
Bros. company, Boston, Mass. The
manager Of the Walla Walla Office
ead cg Il rs IF at city
= block Of this pavement about eight
incl s sluare, which | brought with
me, and II has been on exhibition at
my office the past month, and every
business man who has examined it is
satisfied it is the best thing for North
Yakima.
The common basaltic rock which
the correspondent of the Republic
wants ground up and mixed with
crude petroleum is the rock that
ruined Yakima avenue. 1t is the
rock of which the common soils of
our valley are made. and it pulver-
ICES into dust as fine as flour in the
summer and makes a first class mud
hole in the winter.
The agent of the bitulithic pave
ment at Walla Walla asked me. what
kind of rock we have convenient at
North Yakima for paving. l ans
wered him, "black volcanic scoria,
which is the same kind of lava used
in the sewers of Rome and which has
not disintegrated a particle in thou
sands of years. 1t is the stone of
which the walls of the Catholic and
Episcopal churches of this city are
composed" After the road bed is
thrown up pieces of this rock the
size of a mans fist would constitute
the first layer: the second and third
layers would be smaller and smaller,
until the surface is reached. These
are mixed with a patent cement and
the surface is perfectly smooth.
Pavements that have been laid eight
years have withstood the heat of
summer. the freezing of winter. and
the hardest use from heavy draying,
The price paid at Walla Walla is 50
per square yard.
l am satisfied in talking with the
principal owners in the center of the
city that they do not desire at the
present time to pave more than
three blocks east of the railroad and
two blocks west of the railroad on
Yakima avenue, and one block north
and one south of the avenue. making,
all told. fifteen blocks. This would
pave substantially all of the business
part of the city and would not place
the burden against residence prop
erty. After we have used this and
given it thorough trial it will be
time enough to extend the paving.
Before any paving is done, the
property owners feel that it is alb
solutely necessary that a good sewer
system shall be established and COM