East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1912-06-01
GRAVEL BITUuTH|C
FOR COURT Street
Why Property Owners De-
eide by Overs to | Against
Experimental Paving.
June 1, 1912.

June 1, 1912.
To the Pendleton Property Owners:
Court street property owners at
their meeting held in the city hall last
night voted by more than five to one
for Bitulithic, so that from the senti-
ment expressed It would seem that
this street Is to be paved with a SINH
lar pavement to Main, Alta and East
Court streets. We assure the people
contracts, the same high class work
manship that has resulted so salts
factorily on the other streets we have
paved in Pendleton will be main
tanned. Time will prove that the
property owners on West Court street
will save thousands of dollars and
great inconvenience, in future years
by refusing to adopt the untried ex-
perimental concrete.
AS a general proposition, it does
not pay to experiment, and this ap-
plies particularly to street paving
surfaces, considering the abuse the
street surface must undergo-Zero
weather, hot weather, snow, contin-
ued rains, street acids, oils from au-
tomobiles, etc.
A little reflection of the result dur
ing the past year, of experimental
street paving on the Pacific coast will
| illustrate the wisdom or a conserva-
tive policy such as expressed by the
Court cfraaf pronartv ounarc. nur-
| ing the year 1911 two unknown So
called Pavements, "Westrumite" and
"Bitumass" We're heralded by their
proprietors as equal to Bitulithic and
cheaper" and in Pendleton, Baker
La Grande, North Yakima and in
many other coast cites, samples OF
these two las good as" pavements
were shown, together with testimo-
malls generally from some interested
parties. The samples looked fair, but
were made up" samples, no traffic
ever having been over them. The
promoters of these pavements had
been misinformed, and not being ex-
perienced paving men had honestly
believed the material o. X, but t
their sorrow, results have shown
that they were themselves fooled
even worse than the public. Th'
! first Westrumite was loid in only on,
city. st. John, Ore, and the Who'll,
surface of the street is at this tim,
broken up and the city has refused t,
pay for it. The second, Bitumass
was selected on Dupart St, Belling
ham, after repeated efforts to intro
duce in Pendleton, at low prices an,
other cites on the coast, and durin
the winter the surface broke up il
over fifty places and the contracto
has been ordered to relay the Who'll
street, before the city will pay for i
The property owners in st. Johns an
! Bellingham owing to the inconveni
ence of torn up streets. are very sor
over their experience, but the wors
fooled are the promoters themselves
who in each case have lost over 500,
900 and now do not know what to d.
to repair the work, and are loolxin
for the wise man who came from tn
east and unloaded the agency of tn
new magic paving compound upol
them, and they are not out of tn
woods yet. Notwithstanding that les
than a year has elapsed since thes
new -'pavings'' arrived here, they ar
today practically forgotten and ar
dead issues.
This spring, however, another idea
is being pressed, this time backed b.
the Portland Cement interests to ere
ate a demand for cement, under tn
name Coated Concrete, or Dollarway
1t is stated that this 'fdea' is trie,
out successfully in Ann Arbor, Mich
1t has jumped all the way from AM
Arbor to Pendleton and the promoter
hope to unload it here. This co-call
ed pavement is simply a paint coat o
liquid tar 1-16-in. to 1-S-in. thick
onto which is thrown sand or screen
ings on top of common, every da
concrete, and it is expected that tn
charmed word "Dollarway'' will max
you lose sight of the real construction
Why do the promoters of this pave
ment jump 5000 miles to sell thei
'Hlea"? II it is the success claime
Nr It, why don't Buffalo, Cleveland
Detroit, all within one hundred an
fifty miles of Ann Arbor use it? Their
is reason, and the same reasol