The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-01-11
.s145.S8. .o1
s1Oo,646.os
Bad Roads Around Ensley.

J. T. Lever carrier for the R. r. D. route No. l. Ensley, stated yesterday that the road from Ensley to Dolomite was fairly good, though in need of repairs, from Dolomite to Wylam. a distance of three miles; one mile is in good fix and the other two miles very bad: the road from Wylam to No. mine is badly in need of repairs, while the Wylam and Short creek road from Burnt school house to Camp Branch creek is almost impass- able-in Mir. Levers own words, it is sin- ply 'fh-'
 He stated along J. W. Sanford's place on the Short creek road it was all his pony could do to pull out He also stated the roads running through the property of the Tennessee Coal. Iron and Railroad company were very bad
 Bessemer Carriers Complain.
 The roads on all the rural free delivery routes out of Bessemer are in bad shape at present. There are six rural carriers that leave Bessemer each morning. and each man l1as from IS to 24 miles to make each day. Grover Hancock, who has Route No. 1, has the best roads of the lot He has a route of r miles, and he has about 14 miles of macadamized road. The other three miles are in awful shape, and he states that the road is getting worse at this point each day.
 John Gibson has route No. ? He covers IS miles a day. He has about three miles of macadamized road and after that greater portion of the road is in very bad shape. especially at this time of the year. It takes him at present much longer to cover the route than would be the case if he had good roads.
 w. D. Houston has route No. B. He covers 22.7 miles, and out of that amount he has what may be called four good miles, Nine miles of the route only fair and the other nine miles are in very bad condition.
 l.. C. Waldrop has route No. 4. He covers 24 miles a day. His route out as far as Virginia Mines is in very good shape, but after he leaves there the roads are in an awful condition.
 F. T. Scott has route No. ,. He covers 24 miles a day. He has 13 miles of mac adamized road and after that he has II miles of road to cover that is literally 8
 
 The man on route No has his mail brought to him by Carrier Scott. and it is delivered to him at Glazes store, about six miles from this city. The road up to that place is in very good condition, but after that Carrier No. has a route that extends for about g miles, and he has the worst of the lot. It is under stood that the road over which he has to travel is nothing but mud and water s greater part of the time, and 1t neces- sarily means that it works a hardship on both the carrier and the people who receive the mail. It is impossible for him to make good time under such crcum- stances.
 Considering the handicap that the Bes- semer rural carriers are working under, they are doing remarkably well, and the matter of looking after the betterment and improvement of the public roads is in sore need of attention. The carriers leave Ressemer in the early morning and at .imes it is quite late in the evening ere they return, brought about in most in- stances from the fact that it is impos- sible to make any kind of schedule over the roads that they are compelled to travel in the distribution of the mail.