Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1911-07-12
HIGHEST PRAISE BESTOWED upon
UNRIVALED ROADS Of SUMTER
Experts Have Pronounced Them the
Best in Existence. Wonderful Re.
suits Of Good Roads in Sumter Re-
viewed. County Has Been AdVGF-
tiSGd. to the World.

States. and pronounced by some as
surDassing any in the entire world,
Good roads experts here recently
after covering the entire distance from
Atlanta to Albany, and even farther
southwark, are unanimous in their
opinion that the roads of Sumter coun-
ty surpass any along the route and
that no county in the state has roads
that can anything like equal those IF
Sumter. Such opinions carry weight
that convinces beyond all doubt The
article by Mr.. Lowe is reproduced n
full herewith:
Miles of motor roads straight as
crow-tiight and smooth as an asphalt
ed street newly paved; roads thirty
feet in width with a low, fiat crown,
clean as a tennis court from ditch TO
ditch and with a surface that is the
envy of every highway engineer who
has seen it. Automobiles going over
them at top speed with never a jolt
nor jar; autorists from Florida, Ala
bama and Georgia making long de-
tours to ride in perfect comfort for
once in their lives; farmers going to
town in runabouts, roadsters and tour
ing cars during the day Nfter repair
parts or supplies for moving ma
chimes or threshing outfits, or in the
dusk with their families intent on see
ing the latest offering of the photo
play houses for a pleasant hour. Long
stretches of highway between level
fields of corn and cotton, lush and
green, or between brown boundaries
OF oat stubble with traction plows
breaking it for the second crop of
the year, and an automobile always in
sight. Where was it, Arcadia? Not at
all, but away down South in Georgia
where the convicts are on the roads
in Sumter county near Americas, to
be exact, and the time was late May Of
this year.
Picture a country lying dormant
three-quarters of a century, always a
bit ahead of it's neighbors, but still
asleep; a county making good crops Of
cotton, shipping large quantities oil
peaches canteloupes and watermelons
some years, working up slowly from
the depths of debt and decentralization
due to a reorganization of its indus
trial system, no worse than Oth<r
counties nor very much better The
land was good, but the farming was
Indifferent and there was a tendency
to hang on to old plantation methods.
When the crops were made they were
hauled to town over muddy roads ct
the rate of a bale of cotton to the
mule most of the Winter. In Spring
the fertilizer was hauled from town to
farm when the ground was too wet
for the teams to pillow. The condition
of the roads under this traffic does not
call for comment. Sumter county paid
an enormous mud-taX, but like other
counties did not realize it; the mud
tax is we'll disguised by calling itself
other names, repair bills, eXpendi-I
lures for new equipment and the like.
In short Sumter was an average
southern county in its stage of de-
velopment, albeit her natural resource
es are above the average by much.
Aladdin Rubbed the Lamp.
The good roads enthusiast we have
always with us, but his numbers have
been few In Sumter county Frank
Sheffield, chairman of the board of
county commissioners, began 10 dis
tribute L. A. W. Sood roads literature
some twenty years ago, but the vac
cination did not take noticeably. Gas
oline is the only real virus, and So
potent it is, that before Americas had
two dozen automobiles the county was
willing to spend money on roads, I'M
October 1908 the county authorities
brought the two Robert Christians,
father and son, from Bibb county and
told them to build some roads, but
sadly informed them that there is no
rock in the county and the cost Of
transportation would be something
fearful. They were nerving them
selves to stand the strain, and told
the roadbuilders to go ahead. Some.
man asked the elder Robert Christian
where he would get rock to build
permanent roads. won't get it," he
said To the inquiry that naturally.
followed, he replied, Brains and
whatever material lies alongside the
right of way"
This was a radical sort of state
ment to make to people who had mus
tered courage enough to think of
hauling rock a hundred miles to build
the only sort of permanent roads they
had heard Of The officials and the
people were no more skeptical than
highway engineers in other sections
who refuse to believe that good roads
may be built of brains and the road
side material here in the South. Sum-
ter county has a little less than $50
miles of them today built at cost Of
less than $1,000 the mile. Some cost