The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1913-07-11
MADE THE DIRT MOVE
How the People of Northeastern
Michigan in One Day Built
3OO-MiIe Highway
(Collier's Weekly

Nearly 10000 business and profes-
sional men, farmers, and laborers
in eight counties of northeastern
Michigan made road builders of
themselves at five o'clock in the
morning OF a recent June Monday
designated as Bee Day" When
they threw down their tools and plod-
ded homeward at dusk they had
of graveled highway nearly 800 miles
long, from Bay City on Saginaw Bay
to the northern tip of Michigan s
lower peninsula, opposite Mackinac
Island. Mile after mile of corduroy,
sand holes, and swamp lands had
been included in this stretch the day
before
If one pictures, mayors of cities
and towns, state officials, millionaire
Ilumbermen, and millmen shaving in
| the hot sun, heWing with picks and
axes at corduroy road slabs, throw
| ing stones, shoveling sand and grav-
| ell, leading plow horses, or perform
ling any other of the innumerable
tasks which form part of the work of
lroad building, one has an idea of the
spirit which animated northeastern
| Michigan and made successful the
Bee Day of the Lake Huron Shore
Good Roads Association.
| l.. G. Dafoe, mayor of Alpena,
Mich, went without his breakfast
that he might get in gondOla car
of gravel to which he had been as
| isigned to shovel for the day. William
| A Comstock, regent of the Univer-
| sity of Michigan and president of the
Milwaukee Northern Railway, left
his home at four o'clock the morn
ing of Bee Day, and the relief auto
mobile sent after him by friends who
Thought him lost on the road found
him that evening helping to make a
success of a farmers dance which
wound up one section of the bee.
IScions of the oldest and most power
full families of the district sWeated
at the road bee side by side with
farm hands and laborers.
To appreciate the full significance
lof Bee Day, one had to journey into
1.-THE wilds of Presque Isle county,
(which is sthickly settled with Polish
lpeople No longer than five years
lago these people repeatedly voted
ldown proposals for the adoption oil
Ithe county and township road sys-
Item. They cleared and worked first
lclass farms and built substantial
houses, but they shut themselves of
from the rest of the world by roads
well-nigh impossible.
These people turned out en- masst
on Bee Day. Whole towns were de
serted. They closed their stores
and their little cement-front banks
hung out the holiday sign, and set II
work on the road in company will
1.-The farmers who for a day were let
ting crops take care of themselves
The Poles sang old-cOuntry songs a.
lthey worked, cheered by frequen
drafts from wagon loaded Will
kegs of beer to which picnic pump
were frequently applied.
1t is estimated that over 10000
cubic yards of gravel, sand, and eartl
were moved on Bee Day. Eigh
Icounties and forty-siX township
were holding bees at once. Flv
Thousand teams were at work, an
I15O automobiles carried worker
back and forth from cities along tn
lroute to help the farmers. Over tW
q thousand women, some of whor
walked long distances, because all tn
Nlteams were busy on the bee, prepaI
ed and served dinner for the me
beside the road.