W. M. Gammon, Rome, Ga., chairman of the Board of Commissioners Roads and Revenue, Floyd County, writes to the Manufacturers’ Record:
“The road from Rome to Chattanooga will be a graded macadamized road, with concrete-steel bridges over all streams and concrete culverts over all drains. Through Floyd county it will be of the same class as that of the government road through the Chickamauga Park to Lafayette in Walker county, with which this road will connect.
“The road will be built with convict labor. This county has two gangs of 50 convicts each, 60 mules, seven road graders, two traction engines, with teams of steel cars and road rollers. The bridges and culverts will be built by a bridge gang of trained convicts. These convicts have become really experts in this line and will construct the bridges at about one-half the contract price. In fact, we find the concrete culverts with this labor about the cheapest we can build—about $3 per cubic yard. With this gang we have built over 30 miles of this class of roads the past 18 months, 30 concrete-steel bridges and 120 concrete culverts.
“If all the States would adopt the Georgia convict system, we would in a few years revolutionize road building in the South and have first-class roads from the Potomac to Mexico.
“Chattanooga county and Walker county will only have about 16 miles to build of this road, and they propose to connect with our road and the Government road at Lafayette.
“This county has already built two roads of this character from Rome to the Alabama line, and with the co-operation of the Alabama counties expect to continue them to Birmingham. This county will also complete this summer one road to Polk county and another to Barlow, and with the co-operation of the other counties expects to continue the roads to Atlanta.
“We expect in the near future to have a through line from Chattanooga to Birmingham and Atlanta, passing through Rome. We advocate putting all convicts on the roads, and when the people understand the great benefits to be derived from this work we will soon have a splendid highway from Washington through Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia to the Gulf Coast in Florida.”
The new Kansas law allowing the prisoners of county jails to work on roads will greatly relieve congestion in the Wyandotte county jail, save that county thousands of dollars and improve the roads.
The Commissioners of Wyandotte county are planning to have steel cages built, each one to hold four “bunks,” to care for the prisoners while they are working in the quarries and on the roads. In this way the men can work eight or nine hours a day and no time will be consumed in bringing them to and from the jail. The cages will be built on wheels, so that they can be drawn from place to place.