The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-05-16
S. ninth STREET
CORDUROY ROAD
LAST IN COUNTY
Richmondians Have Chance to
See Type of Highways Fore
fathers Travelled. -..
BY ROSCOE FLEMING

Where metropolitan South Ninth
street now runs, flanked on either
hand by houses which almost touch,
there was once a road which was lit
tie more than trail, leading between
almost unbroken stretches of forest
to the quaint pioneer village which
was then Richmond.
Along this road. drawn by Betsy
and Nancy, who pulled fathers plow
all week and on Saturday were hitch
ed to the rough farm wagon
used to come the people OF eighty or
ninety years ago, father and mother
on the front seat and the children rid
ing patiently on the straw in the wag-
on-bed, all full of excitement and an
ticipation at visiting town after six
day of hard work in the country.
At place only seven blocks from
Main street, where great steam shov-
ell Is now busy getting the street ready
to become a paved metropolitan high
way for more than a mTie into the
country, father either checked his
horses and turned out of the road, or
he and mother and the children WINGED
and groaned as the wagon jolted and
| bounced and squeaked over the Sec
ton Of corduroy which the county
fathers laid down to bridge the marsh
, which was then there.
Logs Perfectly Preserved.
Perfectly preserved, even to the
bark, and bearing the ax-marks OF the
strudy frontiersmen who laid them,
! the logs of that section Of corduroy
road made eighty or hundred years
ago when the present city street was
a forest trail have just been uncover
ed by the work Of the steam shovel
which is excavating on South Ninth
They have lain buried and forgotten
! three or four feet beneath the modern
pike for years.
The logs are from twelve to fifteen
! feet long, and were evidently chosen
to be about eight to ten inches In dia
meter. Several kinds of timber were
used, the builders evidently cutting
any tree handy which would bridge
/ the mud
Remembered by Old Residents.
Corduroy roads are well remember
ed as features of their early childhood
by some of the elder residents o1
Richmond
Even after the middle of the last
century there were long stretches oi
corduroy in Henry county and other
!
mained longer than it did here. Bui
! the South Ninth street excavation is
probably the last opportunity members
of this generation will have to sec
roads over which their forefathers
travelled
| Corduroy roads were made in yer,
simple fashion by cutting numbe,
of logs of about the same size and Law
ing them across the highway, afte,
which three or four inches of dirt wer,
placed over the top and the road wa!
pronounced ready for travel
/ But the rains quickly washed ava,
the dirt, and the logs would rise ant
sink, so that the surface became il
a short time unfit for travel. Farm
ers coming to town actually preferre,
/ to make new roads in the mud along
side the old, rather than Jolt owe
them.
/ Sometimes it became a choice o
losing your wagon by jolting t.
pieces or by miring in the mud, an,
while it was not easy to put the piece
together again, 1t could always be du,
out of the mud. So many preferre,
to mire down rather than use tn
corduroy.
South 9Th Stretch Longest
These roads were never general,
used here, except to provide a firm
highway over mushy places, and it i
tprobab BILE that the South Ninth stree
stretch, which was evidently only 10
feet or so, was as long as any here
abouts.
They were made only when the tree
were handy through the forest. TIL
work Of cutting and placing them wa
so hard that other roads were use,
wherever possible.
i Bernhard. duke of SAKE WeimaI
| Continued on Page Four)