Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-06-10

Continued From First Page1
ends of detail remain; these will be
Strengthened out by the Park Boart
engineers as they complete the fina
estimate for the contractor.
Early during the week Park Com.
missioner E. u. Gross, Assistant v
Grant Forrer and Allen Paget and
James Shope, the engineers, will un.
officially inspect the roadway with q
view of picking out any flaws which
can be pointed out to the inspection
party later in the week. The date fol
the inspection trip, by the way, cannot
be definitely fixed until the return OF
Mr.. Forrer. ...
The Building of the Road
The building of the parkway drive
is another tale that will always have a
place of its own in the history of Har-
risburg's public improvem ents; it's a
story of heart breaking cuts" of un-
usual depths through solid limestone
the removal of portions of hills, the
eliminating of a section of one of the
Oldest cemeteries in the world-Pot-
ter's Field-the filing in of lowlands
and meadows and the draining of
those officials who have travelled over
it, is the prettiest of Harrisburg's many
miles of park drives.
The section from Cameron street to
the almshouse road isn't a new story
to Harrisburg folks; from the old ter
minus of the Cameron parkway to
Derry street and from Derry north
ward up the valley of the winding
Spring creek to the entrance at Reser-
voir directly east of Cherry Hill is
new, however.
Up the Valley
Rolling meadow land in the valleys
and green wooded slopes; winding
road that is covered with fine crushed
stone almost macadam in it's consist
ency for nearly its entire length; and
the assurance that only pleasure and
no heavier vehicular traffic can use
the road combine to make the drive
an ideal one. The ride, incidentally,
will be through one of the most pic
turesque little valleys in this section of
the county, and a section is close
enough to the city to afford untold
opportunities for suburban develop
ment.
That the citizen who wants to get
out to the country and still enjoy the
Vulnerable French" drains These
vantage of that opportunity is evi-
denced right along. The Bellevue
Park section is reaping the benefit of
the new parkway in wonderful way;
so are other tracts which have been
developed by Miller Bros. & Co. Incl
dentally. the company helped to make
the roadway possible 1t donated a
nice strip in the vicinity of Prospect
Hill Cemetery. The new parkway
skirts the new cemetery Just east of
the Reservoir Some idea of the
beauties of the roadway can be had
from the accompanying etchings
they're printed by the Telegraph
through the courtesy of Miller Bros.
& Co.
The Long "Coast"
The new driveway is unique in a
number of ways. In the first place il
will afford wonderful coast" at a
gentle but attractive grade for auto
mobile or bicycle from the entrance of
the road at Reservoir practically the
entire distance to Derry street Just
west of PaXtang-a distance of more
than a mile.
The driveway is twenty-five feet
wide on the filled ground and twenty
four feet in the cuts" In some in
stances side and noses of hills had
to be cut back to a distance of fifty
feet. In the Dull tract the most seri-
Gus difficulty with swamp land was
overcome by the construction of in
Vulnerable F"rench" drains. These
are bitches about two feet deep and
about three feet across at the top. The
trench is filled with loose stones
through which the water can seep
For some 2, 100 feet these drains. alter
mating with long sections of terra Gotta
pipe. have been placed. The roadbed
in many instances was filled to a depth
of three feet so as to raise it out of the
flood stage. One of the contractors
greatest trials had to be fought out in
the draining of that section. The
ground was so soft-engineers and
transitmen often sank to their knees
in the marshes-that the stone wagons
couldn't approach nearer than 500 feet
and the stone had to he carried in bags
by laborers on their backs That was
one of the charges which ran UP the
extras so much: the contractor only
allowed for 500 feet of overhaul !"
Then, too, there was much additional
filling needed; in one instance an extra
borrow" pit had to be dug, from
which 2,457 yards of earth was taken.
The Bridges
Four bridges were constructed on
the route-one below Derry street and
three north of 1t. Three of the via
ducts are constructed of limestone and
concrete, made from stone quarried
from the cuts" in the roadway. The
remaining bridge is q culvert. For a
distance of 1 1900 feet northward from
Derry street crushed stone has been
used on the road and If money had
lasted a greater distance would have
been covered. The section south Of
Derry street has been covered with the
same fine material
Final estimates of the cost of con-
struction will show that the city ex-
pended in the neighborhood of $4,000
on the road. of which about s1e.500
was the original contract price The
remainder was charged in extras"