Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1911-05-23
Fred Lewis, in The Atlanta Constr
tution)

Fred Lewis, IN The Atlanta Constl-
tution)
VI you want a type of what every
Georgia county should do in the mat
ter Of good roads building, go down
to Americas and take look at the
roads of Sumter county.
In this county there have been built
within the last three years approxt>
mately $50 miles of the most perfect
roadways not only in Georgia, but in
the South.
It is a simple statement of fact that
the Sumter county roads cannot be
beaten.
And they are nothing more nor less
than a proper admtxture of sand and
clay in right proportion, laid upon a
graded surface, rolled and packed and
scraped whenever there is necessity
for it, with a split-log drag.
Sumter finds her road materials
right at home, but she goes further
than many other counties in similar
position; she puts the energy and the
labor and the money back of the ma
terials and converts them into roads
that would make any race track in the
country sit up and take notice
Beats the Speedway.
Driving The Constitutions Thomas
Flyer over the Oglethorpe road out Of
Americas at forty-eight miles an hour
on the occasion of the recent trip 10
the Albany meeting of the Anderson
vtlle-Thomasyille highway committee,
Manager H. B. Odell, of the auto com
pany, remarked as the car sped along
without the slightest apparent eff
fort:
There is no question that these
roads have got the Speedway beaten. -
And it was less than three years
ago that Sumter county began putting
the good roads gospel into practice.
Under the able direction of Chair
man Frank Sheffield, of the county
commissioners and his co-w0rkers on
the board, Sumter county has achieved
within that brief space, what, per-
haps no other county in the South h
done, and she has done it because
the people are wideawake, enterpris-
ing and determined Everybody in
Sumter wants good roads and the on
ly difficulty experienced was the keen
competition among the people in vari-
GUS sections of the county who wanted
their roads built first.
So the board went ahead the best it
could and with the result, at least, It
has been able both to satisfy and to
crafty every resident of the county.
On the New Highway.
When the question of the establish
ment of the Andersonville-T Thomas
vile highway came up at Albany a
few weeks ago, Sumter county lacked
e few moles of having it's part of the
route complete to the Macon county
line at the Andersonville station. The
county convicts were put Immediately
to work on that particular portion of
the road, and less than a mile of it
remains to be completed And it Is
one of the finest pieces of road work
ia the county, too.
So that now Sumter county's thirty
miles of highway on the Anderson
villeThomasville route are the pref
test and smoothest anywhere on it.
Sumter county doesn't build roads
over hills; it cuts through them. There
are cuts in the county anywhere from
a few feet to twenty-five or thirty feet
deep, and there are fills almost as
high. Of course, there are hills in
the county, but they are long, gentle
slopes over which two mules can pun
ten bales of cotton almost as easily
as they can on level ground. There
are none of the steep, quick and heavy
grades to cause extraordinary effort or
strain in pulling over them.
Boom in Property Values.
And what is the result of all this
splendid road work Sumter county has
done and is doing?
One would have to see it to learn the