Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1913-10-29
CHANGING THE TOPOGRAPHY
Giant Steam shovels SIieing Off Sidei
Of Big Hill to Improve
the Capital.

Reminds me of pictures Of work
done on the Panama canal" said a.
man with his hands deep in his pock-
cts and an air Of leisure. giant
steam shovel, grating and Kissing and
grinding and crunching, was scooping
out a CARLOAD of yellow clay every
time it bit into the earth. With o.
rattling of chains and bolts and levers
1t would drop its spoil into one OF q
train of railroad dump cars. Three lit
tie but strong locomotives. black,
grimy and greasy, puffed and painted
busily up and down steep grades haui-i
ing these dirt trains. Small rails on
crossties yard apart were crookedly
laid over the land.
The scene was big with motion and
industry. A feature of this was that
around the place Of this great activity
are rows and rows Of homes, blocks
Of apartment houses end lines OF
street cars. Crowds of men, whose
engagements do not seem to be press
ing, gather to watch the toilers at
their task. These workers are making
over large piece Of the topography
of Washington.
This work may be called the Zoo
or Rock Creek Park entrance but 1t
includes other projects than the pro-
vision Of an adequate inlet and outlet
to the Rock Creek Park area, though
the building Of this park entrance is
liz itself gigantic piece Of engineer
ing, excavation and filling.
Where Columbia road, the Avenue
Of the Presidents and Mount Pleasant
street intersect you will see on thel
west an extensive tract of raw, cloddy
earth, either freshly cut away or
freshly dumped in. and many perches
of broken bluestone that have BEEN
hauled there to find final use as a
dressing (or is it metal?) Cor the
broad roadways that are building.
From Columbia road and from Mount
Pleasant street near their junction al
large section of land. generally unbuilt
on. stretches westwardly to the tree
grown heights that drop down into the
valley of Rock creek on the east side
Of the Zoo grounds.
A wide, bare clay avenue leads
westwardly down grade, cutting
through the side of an oak-timbered
hill on the north and on the south
filling part of the ravine or vale
through which Quarry road leads. or
led, till the level Of the new street Is
higher than the roofs of the houses
that face on Quarry road.
Lanier street has been filed across
the Quarry road ravine and connects
with the avenue building to the Zoo.
Eighteenth street has also been filed
across this ravine. shutting In deep 7
hole many of the familiar houses
along Quarry road. the outlet from
which is now by means of new and
romantic, steep and crooked little
street called Summit place.
The new park entrance after slicing
off the side of a big hill enters the
valley of Quarry road obliquely and
at the point of contact with Eight
eenth street an extensive high.uplifted
plaza Is forming. From this point the
new way is building down the line Of:
old Quarry road, whose bed is being
buried 40 feet, it may be 30 feet, un-
der mountains of dirt dumped by
trains into this once picturesque vale.
UP on the highland and running
west from Mourt Pleasant street Is
being cut through new street called
Hobart
1t is a big piece of work and thou
sands of fascinated persons who live
in that neighborhood or stray in that
direction gather to watch its progress.