The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1911-06-16

gagged in road work while in Port
land, and was generously entertained
land shown everything of interest in
this line. Two of the commissioners
from Ada county were there on the
Isame mission as Mr.. Jones, and they
hob-nobbed together In their observa-
tions and studies.
Mr.. Jones says that Portland is
being built up rapidly, that skyscrap-
ers are being built over wide range
of the city, not including the dis
trict near the wharf and the union
depot where the old wooden struc-
lures have ornamented CD things so
long.
Commissioner Bennett on Roads
Commissioner Bennett was down
from Shelley Tuesday and reports
that the sand roads of the Goshen
country are being very effectually con-
quered. Heretofore the efforts at
road-making through the belts of
deep sand have been on plans to COW
|er or coat the sand or by mixing
straw or brush as top coat, and
this has been expensive and of short
life. A piece of road mile and
half in extent between Shelley and
Taylor is being scraped down to hard
sand and then coated foot and ahalf
deep with clay scraped in from con-
venient intervals. The people living
in the locality are doing the work and
bearing most of the expense, but the
county pays part.
Another piece of road in Goshen is
being scraped clear of sand in belt
20 feet wide, the level of the country
being clay, and depositing the sand
on the lee side of the road where
farmers can use 1t on their fields.
On the windward side little If any
more sand can blow in because most
of it is in meadow or other crops and
drifting sand has ceased. The clay
bottom makes a good roadbed, and
this is graded SO it will drain.
The plan was presented to the COM
missioners some time ago with the
proposition from the local people that
if the county would pay half of the
expenses they would pay the rest,
and they showed their good faith by
displaying a subscription list on which
$4,000 had been listed.
Their plans contemplated filling in
with layer of clay when they had
scraped off the loose sand, but they
found the clay already there and the
work cost less than half as much as
they expected it would. The road
is just about completed and the total
expense will be about $14O0. People
up there are enthusiastic over the
new method of treating sand roads,
and especially those who have been
accustomed to expending from $500
to $400 per mile for strawing the
track and then seeing it cut to pieces
and disappear in short time.
Mr.. Bennet and James Just, in
company with County Surveyor Ras
Christensen, have just returned from
a trip into the hills among the dry
farmers of Cedar Creek and Wolver-
the country, where roads have been
fenced UP and great Inconvenience
resulted to travellers. They have con-
suited with settlers and established
permanent roads in the best places,
and arranged for doing such, work as
seemed advisable. They received
hearty cooperation from the people
everywhere, and in some places very
generous contributions of labor on the
roads.
They will expend about 500 on the
road to Wolverine to make it passable
up to some camping grounds. The
way things have been going 1t be-
came impossible to get into that
beautiful valley and the canyon.