The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1912-05-22
FOR PERMANENT
COUNTRY HIGHWAYS
Action Of Perry Commercial Club Has
Started General Discussion As
to County Highways.
HE COST is VERY NOMINAL
Expense Will Prove Less Than Cost
Of One Auto Tire Per Year
to the Farmers.
Highway Pavement.

HIGHWAY Pavement. .
i The action of the Commercial club
at Perry in providing for the con.
struction of mile of concrete paw
ing on country road leading into
that town, has started general dis
cussion of the subject of permanent
country highways, and writer in the
Council Bluffs Nonpariel points out
that the farmers could have their
country roads paved at a cost to each
quarter section Of only $67 year,
or just about what one automobile
tire would cost.
In Ohio and Pennsylvania.
In Ohio and Pennsylvania brick
pavements are already in use over
hundreds of miles of rural roads and
in Texas even thousands of miles of
rural roads are being paved. Cali
fornia has already exhausted an
eighteen million dollar issue of state
bonds for rural payements. The paw
ing of rural roads just as Perry pro-
poses to do is practicable in Iowa. I'm
der favorable legislature it would cost
net 10 exceed $67 per annum to each
quarter section of land AUDITING
rural pavement to pay for the i'm
prOvement.
Even Texas is at Work.
In Texas the Commercial club of
Dennison secured from the legislature
statute providing for the creation
of special assess ment road improve
ment direct just as We create special
drainage district in Iowa. Twenty
year bond issues are authorized
In Iowa, Mason City and Marshall
town let contracts for concrete pave.
ment on their city streets at $1.O6I
per square yard this spring, while
Cedar Falls, with gravel pits near
by, secured bid of 81 cents per
square yard. Wherever gravel and
sharp sand can be found nearby con-
crete pavements can be laid on the
dy VI INV q lOl 1853 IMAM
$4,000 per mile.
Cost $40 Per Mile Per Year.
TO retire the bonds in twenty an
nual installments and meet the in
terest charge would cost not to ex-
coed $40 per mile per annum. II
100 miles of such pavement were
laid, radlating in every direction from
a county seat town, and the road i'm
provement district were to include
for special paving taxation the town
property as we'll as all the farms sit
uated within two miles of each paved
highway, and if half the cost were
assessed directly to the farms adult
ing the pavement and half to the rest
of the property within the district,
each quarter section of land abutting
on paved streets leading from its mail
box to town would be assessed S67 per
annum special paving tax and the
quarter section lying from half mile
to miles back from such paved rural
street would be assed not to exceed
500 per annum special paving tax
In other words when the Perry
example has become a statewide pol
icy, it will cost the farms OF Iowa
about the price Of one automobile tire
per annum to enjoy paved streets from
their front gates to town. The cost
not exceed per cent interest on S6I
per acre, increased value to the land.
How much more would an Iowa farm
be worth an acre if it had paved
street leading all the way from 5 to 8
miles to town?-Ida Grove Pioneer.