It Happened Here -- New York's Wooden Roads

Yes, I said wooden, not wooded.

In retrospect, the idea of roads made of wood does not seem like a good idea.  Wood, of course, rots quickly when it is in contact with the earth. For centuries, corduroy roads had been constructed. Logs cut and laid down side by side were used to run roads across swampy areas and through muddy stretches, preventing wagons from becoming mired in the mud.  But they quickly rotted out,  and besides, the ride over them was extremely bumpy and miserable.

In the 1840's stories began to circulate  about a new type of road that had originated in Russia and was being successfully employed in Canada.  The Town of Salina, near Syracuse sent civil engineer George Geddes to Toronto to study them. Geddes returned full of enthusiasm for the new plank roads, extolling their virtues in Scientific American, April 27, 1850 and publishing his own pamphlet promoting them.   Geddes learned that the Canadians were building roads of two to four inch planks laid crossways over wooden "sills", "sleepers". or "stringers",  sometimes laid over logs set corduroy fashion over wet areas¹.

The roads were constructed with drainage ditches along both sides to carry rain water away from them. By keeping the roads from becoming waterlogged, it was predicted plank roads would last 8 to 12 years.  Geddes built the first plank road in America,  the Salina—Central Square Plank Road, north of Syracuse in 1846.

In the first decade of the 19th century New York had experienced an explosion of turnpike road building.  Investors pooled their capital to pay for construction of private roads that charged tolls for their use. But over the next several decades turnpike companies struggled to meet expenses, and rarely turned a profit. Local governments forced them to keep their tolls low and exempted much local traffic from having to pay tolls. Maintenance became a major expense. Mostly dirt roads, the turnpikes became deeply rutted, and in the spring became nearly impassible seas of mud.²

During the second decade, regional turnpikes began to feel the pressure of competition from New York's growing canal system, and in the decades that followed, from the railroads as well. While the great turnpikes struggled and failed and were abandoned into the public domain in the first half of the 19th century, the demand for local feeder roads grew. Farms and towns needed roads to connect them to the State's railroads and canal system, and the regional  and statewide markets that were developing. Into this environment burst the new plank road technology with its promise of smooth reliable transportation at a cost to developers of about $1,500 per mile. By the early 1850's, timber-rich New York was home to some 335 plank road companies, laying some  3,500 miles of plank road,  more than any other state³.  They became especially popular in rural areas where for the first time a growing dairy industry could rush butter, cheese, and even fresh milk to nearby cities.

Main Street, Altamont

 





                    Rte 146 and Rte 9, Clifton Park
                         

County Rte. 110, Broadalbin

But then, just as suddenly as they came into existence, the popularity of plank roads plummeted. Instead of lasting eight to twelve years, as promoted, they began to rot away in a mere four to five years! (The warmer climate of the United States, over Canada or Russia may have hastened their demise.)  Soon the courts were filled with cases of plank road customers seeking compensation for damages to their wagons and horses caused by falls through rotted out planks.  By 1853-54, no new plank roads were being built and repairs to existing plank roads were made with earthen fill and gravel. By 1865 most plank roads had been resurfaced with stone or fill, or they had been abandoned. In the second half of the 19th century, reporting on his trip over a plank road in Michigan,  Mark Twain quipped,  " "It would have been good if some unconscionable scoundrel had not now and then dropped a plank across it."⁴

 

Across New York vestiges of long gone plank
roads can be seen in local streets named "Plank
Road" This one, near the intersection of Rte 9W and Rte 32, was near the end of the South Bethlehem Plank Road, incorporated in 1851.






















 

                        Plank Road, Clarksville
















1The availability of timber and the advent of saw mills made plank roads feasible.  New York was the largest lumber producer in the United States in the first half of the 19^th Century and innovations in saw mill technology, development of circular saws and gang saws (multiple saws that cut a log into several planks at once) made the cheap production of large numbers of planks possible.

2Around 1820 a superior road which resisted ruts and potholes had been developed by a Scots engineer John Macadam. Macadam roads were built on a base of large crushed rock, covered by smaller crushed rock followed by a top layer of small crushed stones and stone dust. The jagged edged stone locked together when packed down forming a stable base. The roads were built with a “crown”--raised in the center, to allow water to run off, and not pool and cause potholes. But at an estimated cost of $3500 a mile they were prohibitively expensive. It was not until the twentieth century that asphalt was used as a binder for Macadam roads.
 

3 See "Turnpikes and Toll Roads in Nineteenth Century America" eh.net/encyclopedia/article/Klein, Majewski,Turnpikes.

4 Quoted in “The Plank Road Craze” /www.michigan.gov/.../0,4570,7-153-54463_18670_18793-5286...


 Marker of the Week --  Repurposed Ver. 4.0    (This is the last one, for now--I promise.)

 Saugerties, New York
From a church, to a school... and a blacksmith shop!
(and now it is home to a church, again.)

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