[119] “American Nation,” Vol. XXIII, 39.
[120] U. S. Eleventh Census (1890), “Transportation on Land.”
[121] See Maps in Century Dictionary.
CHAPTER V
THE MODERN WAGON ROAD
Gone are the long picturesque lines of emigrant and freight wagons, with their conestogas, their stage coaches, their oxen, their mules and horses; gone are the hospitable inns with their gay and social crowds of happy travelers; gone are the nightly wagon-formed corrals into which the freighter was wont to drive his animals to prevent their stampeding by the wily red-skin; gone are the complacent but slow-going canal barges so plentiful and popular that at the cry of “low bridge,” everybody ducked by reflex action; gone are the floating palaces on the vacillating and changeable waters of the interior river systems; these yesteryear implements of transportation have been all but superseded by more powerful or more speedy instruments. The canals are very frequently but weed-grown scum-covered channels through the soil, while many of the wagon roads are similarly weed-grown or dust-covered lanes on top of the soil. Perhaps a rejuvenation will come. Already the public road shows signs of a more vigorous growth than the world has ever witnessed even in the heyday of road building under the Roman Caesars.
© Underwood and Underwood
TRANSPORTATION ACROSS DEATH VALLEY
A Picturesque Method of Earlier Days.
Public highways began their desuetude (partial at least) about 1830, at the advent of the steam railway. To be sure, arrangements were made for the laying out and care of roads. There were, also, usually poll and property taxes levied for road and bridge purposes. But generally the old English custom of allowing such taxes to be worked out prevailed. In Iowa, for instance,[122] the county court was given “general supervision over the highways” which must be 66 feet wide unless otherwise specially directed. The manner of establishing roads is set forth and the county judge may if he wishes call in a competent surveyor and “cause the line of the road to be accurately surveyed and plainly marked out.” “Where crops have been sowed or planted before the road is finally established the opening thereof shall be delayed until the crop is harvested.” The county supervisor must appoint a deputy in each township, but the deputy “must regard himself as an actual laboring hand” and his compensation “shall not exceed one dollar and fifty cents for each day actually employed.” It is the duty of the supervisor “to place and preserve the roads in as good a condition as the funds at his disposal will permit, and to place guide boards at such points as he may think expedient or as the court may direct.” In the Eastern states and in the hilly districts the method of locating each individual road to follow a trail or stream or ridge usually prevailed, but in many of the prairie states roads were located by law on each section line and in some states on each half-section line as well. This made every man’s farm adjacent to a road, although it was certainly a waste of land. In nearly all the prairie states the legal right of way is now 66 feet,[123] in other states it is made 491⁄2 and 33 feet. Massachusetts state-aid roads have a minimum of 50 feet. Texas divided her roads into three classes with widths of 60, 30 and 20 feet. New Jersey has some state roads 33 feet wide. On the whole 66 feet seems to be favored. This, if roads are made on every half-section mile, appropriates almost 5 per cent of the land, a quantity that by proper selection and location might be materially reduced. The section line method is liked by farmers because it leaves the fields rectangular, a convenient form for efficiency in cultivation.