Sentence:  “Us Knotts, we've been keeping up this road for over a hundred years,” he said, waving away the extra biscuit Doris tried to press on him. “My granddaddy was a <WSD>road captain</WSD> back 'fore nineteen-hundred." "What was that?" asked Seth's daughter Jessica. "Means being in charge of a stretch of road. When my pa was a boy, he used to go help Grampa lay off his mile." 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A person who has official responsibility for maintaining a section of road.