The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1922-02-16
Minnesota's NelD Highway
Plan Affects the Entire State

IIIC LIIIIIC 0IuIC
mainly at farm entrances, costing
$1.76 a foot, and 455 monolithic cul'
verts at an average of $705.73 each
Right -of-way clearing and grubbing
hand ditching; special blowing, gut
tiers and catch basins, retaining walls
and minor items are part of the new
improvements listed.
Maintenance Spreads Benefits
The smoothing and other upkeep OF
$685. miles of trunk highways last
season took $2,224,227 of the $4,000,
900 fund set aside for maintenance,
according to w. F. Rosenwald, chief
maintenance engineer.
Eighty-two cents of each mainten-
ance dollar was paid for labor, the
summary shows. Men and teams get
43 cents of the dollar or 1864, 200,
against % cents or $624,000 paid
men and trucks. In addition, labor
ers took $133, 5000 cents of each
average dollar. Other items making
up the dollar were about z cents for
gravel, culverts and other materials,
about 10 cents for equipment opera
ton and less than one cent for un-
classified items. Maintenance and
special upkeep work on the trunk
routes averaged 1924 .46 mile for
the season. That includes wages of
patrolmen-one for each mile Sec
tion-the reshaping and resurfacing
operations which in some cases ran
close to new construction figures,
and other like OUTLAWS. Another
maintenance dollar distribution shows
Al 1-2 cents to patrolmen, % cents
for repairs and FL cents for better
ments, a little over 1 1-2 cents for
special work and 5 cents for over
head expenses and superintendent
of all kinds from executives to fore
men. Shown in another way, smooth
ing and mending during the season
cost $144. 70 a mile; repairs $90.17
and betterments $6S.30; special work
$5.0S and overhead $16.21 cents a
mile. ~
Miscellaneous Work Listed
Maintenance forces also marked
the trunk routes with the official
numbers on yellow stars, made the
traffic census, kept up the detours
and did much other special work.
Patrolling of $685. miles, of trunk
routes included the cutting of brush
along 1892 miles, cleaning of 969
miles of side bitches and raking over
sized stones from 1851 miles OF
highway. In reshaping 1,137 miles
of trunk routes, maintenance crews
moved 56,846 cubic yards of earth,
excavated 600 yards of solid rock,
cut So miles of drainage bitches and
filled 80 bridge approaches and ID
sink holes. Likewise, resurfacing of
1856 miles involved the placing of
632 ,367 cubic yards of gravel, the
sacrifyisg Of 285 miles of surfacing
and the . building of II miles of
shoulders along paving.
Maintenance forces built Is wood
en- bridges and repaired 191 others
and placed 1,067 and repaired 1876
culverts. They built 24,330 lineal
feet of guard rails and painted and
repaired 9,110 feet more; placed
45,21O feet of snow fences; laid 49,
78O lineal feet of drain tile and 2,911
cubic yards of riprap. Last but not
least, the maintenance engineer add
ed, the forces built So miles of de-
tours and maintained SAT IL miles
of detour routes.
Equipment and Inspection
The highway equipment depart
ment with shops at the state fair
grounds and many fleets and smaller
outfits in the field was. operated in
1921 at an over all expense of 1882,
515,53, according to the report of
R. M. Cooley, superintendent of
equipment. A division of the aver
age dollar spent for equipment shows
that about 40 cents was used for new
pdTCS, on CelCS LUZ ucW ul1CiAhCS e%iio
the remaining 80 cents for many
small items. An appraised Of the
surplus war equipment held here to-
gether with the accumulated earnings
at going prices will show a big ? gain
for the state when it is completed,
Cooley predicted, and
preliminary figures show 100000 of
net earnings.
F. C. Lang, engineer of tests, is
in charge of field inspections on con-
struction and also of the laboratories
at the University of Minnesota where
many material and other tests were
made. Scientific tests Of cement, as
phalt and other materials used byl
the state in highway buildings are
made by the score at the laboratories
and the costs Of the service like those
Of field inspection are measured by|
mills, rather than cents, in the dol
lar graphs. This is the main insur-
ance denartnnent in connection with