Wilson, Ben Hur

English

Iowa Research Online

Masthead Logo The Palimpsest
Volume 15 | Number 9 Article 2
9-1-1934
The Genesis of Planking
Ben Hur Wilson
Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/palimpsest
Part of the United States History Commons
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the State Historical Society of Iowa at Iowa Research Online. It has been accepted for
inclusion in The Palimpsest by an authorized administrator of Iowa Research Online. For more information, please contact lib-ir@uiowa.edu.
Recommended Citation
Wilson, Ben H. "The Genesis of Planking." The Palimpsest 15 (1934), 289-297.
Available at: https://ir.uiowa.edu/palimpsest/vol15/iss9/2
The Palimpsest
E D I T E D  BY J O H N  ELY B R I G G S  
v o l . XV Is s u e d  in S e p t e m b e r  1 9 3 4  No.  9
C O P Y R I C H T  1 9 3 4  BY T H E  S T A T E  H I S T O R I C A L  S O C I E T Y  O F  I OWA
The Genesis of Planking
The need for better means of transportation has 
been a continual challenge in the civilization of 
America. From Indian trails and “dugout” ca­
noes to trans-continental airways is a long story 
with many stirring chapters. Each advance seems 
to have moved across the country from East to 
West, not, perhaps, as a continuous wave, but as 
great eddies, radiating outward from populous 
centers. From the Atlantic seaboard to the Mis­
sissippi River there has been a distinct time lag, 
amounting sometimes, as in the case of the rail­
roads, to as much as twenty-five years.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, tre­
mendous strides were being made in the develop­
ment of all forms of transportation then known. 
Rivers and canals vied with turnpikes and na­
tional roads as main-travelled routes, and the iron 
horse was beginning to make its influence felt. 
Not, however, until the decade following the Civil
289
290 THE PALIMPSEST
War did the great age of railroad expansion be­
gin. Then, for more than half a century, this form 
of transportation expanded so rapidly that it al­
most crowded out other competitive methods.
Prior to the advent of railroads, the marketing 
of farm products was especially difficult. Hauling 
grain over dirt roads was expensive. As much as 
fifty cents per hundred weight was charged for 
twenty miles. Corn, even disregarding the costs of 
production, could not ordinarily be moved more 
than twenty-five or thirty miles on the highways 
and sold at a profit. At the beginning of the nine­
teenth century, it is said that ginseng was the 
only product that could be grown in Kentucky, 
then the most populous State in the West, trans­
ported to Philadelphia, and sold for enough to pay 
for the hauling. At a time when three-fourths of 
the country’s population were farmers, clamoring 
for a market, cheaper and better forms of trans­
portation were absolutely essential.
The supremacy of the “rails” was recognized 
and opposed by other transportation interests, 
which sought in every possible manner to check 
the intrusion of this ruthless competitor into their 
particular fields of operation. One of the principal 
advantages of the railroad over the turnpike was 
the fact that it was an “all weather road”. When 
highway transportation was at a standstill on ac­
THE GENESIS OF PLANKING 291
count of storms and mud, transportation by rail 
was practically uninterrupted. The obvious ad­
vantage was apparent to all. Those most inter­
ested in the continuance of the existing stage lines 
thought that, if the delays incurred by inclement 
weather could be overcome, they might, for a time 
at least, stem the tide of public favor which was 
rapidly swinging toward the railroads.
Two methods of highway improvement were 
found to be feasible. In fact, in modified forms, 
both had been employed for centuries in various 
parts of the world. The first was the construction 
of stone-surfaced roads, a notable example being 
those built by the Romans, which, it is said, to this 
day have probably never been surpassed either for 
excellence or durability. The second kind of hard 
surfacing was with wood. As a temporary expedi­
ent this method had been widely and frequently 
used, especially in swampy places.
Innumerable stretches of old “corduroy” roads 
were built, not only throughout the settled portions 
of the country, but in sparsely populated regions 
as well. In the construction of “corduroy” roads, 
the most primitive methods were often used. 
Small logs or tree trunks were simply laid cross­
wise of the road over swampy places. They fur­
nished a solid foundation, thus preventing animals 
and vehicles from sinking down deep into the mud.
292 THE PALIMPSEST
In some instances the surface of these roads was 
greatly improved by splitting the logs, laying them 
flat side upward, and fastening them in place by 
overlying stringers secured along each side of the 
road with stakes driven into the ground.
The coming of the power sawmill, which fol­
lowed the advance of civilization throughout the 
middle west, made possible a distinct improvement 
in the construction of wood-surfaced highways. 
Smooth, sawed planks took the place of the round 
or split logs. Whereas the old “corduroy” high­
way fully justified its name, being decidedly more 
utilitarian than comfortable, the newly devised 
“plank road”, with its smooth, even surface, 
seemed like perfection in comparison. Plank 
roads reached the peak of their development in the 
United States during the decade between 1840 
and 1850. Thereafter they experienced a rapid 
decline in popularity.
Plank roads were built upon an earth embank­
ment or grade about thirty feet in width along a 
predetermined right of way. Usually ditches 
were constructed on both sides for drainage. 
Where valleys and ravines were crossed, earth­
works or fills of considerable magnitude were 
sometimes necessary. Stream beds and ditches 
were spanned by substantial bridges, and a high 
type of engineering ability and ingenuity was
THE GENESIS OF PLANKING 293
often displayed in the construction of these 
trestles which, of course, were usually made en­
tirely of wood, although occasionally stone was 
employed for an arch or culvert. Concrete, struc­
tural steel, and iron bridges now so common were 
then not even in the experimental stage.
The road surface proper, when built according 
to standard specifications generally accepted at 
that time, was formed by three-inch planks, eight 
feet in length, laid transversely to longitudinal 
sleepers which were imbedded in the earth road 
base. The dimensions of the sleepers were about 
six by eight inches and the usual arrangement was 
to place one on each side of the roadway, although 
it is said that upon some of the better construction 
a third was laid down the center.
The question of employing or not employing 
nether stringers seemed to be a point of consider­
able controversy. “The use of large stringers be­
neath is also an error ’, declared the Prairie Farm­
er in 1851. “The plank ought to rest on the earth 
for their support. Stringers are only useful in 
keeping the plank from turning; which, especially 
at first, they are liable to do, while the earth be­
neath is soft. There should be no impediment to 
the compact and snug bedding down of the whole 
superstructure of the road.”
The width of the surfacing plank was not nec-
294 THE PALIMPSEST
essarily uniform, being determined by the size of 
the logs from which it was sawed. Six inches was 
usually the minimum width, and from ten to four­
teen inches the maximum. The kind of plank de­
pended largely upon the variety of timber avail­
able in the vicinity of the proposed highway. In 
some regions hemlock and other soft woods were 
used, but generally throughout the middle west 
only superior woods were utilized. Devastating 
inroads were made upon the finest stands of oak 
and walnut timber. Ordinarily the planks were 
fastened to the sleepers by means of iron spikes 
which were of the square, hand-wrought variety. 
When these were not available, wooden pins or 
even stakes were sometimes used.
Hundreds of miles of these roads were built 
during the heyday of their popularity. The Mus­
catine journal on February 7, 1852, stated that as 
many as seven plank roads had been built out of 
Detroit, connecting that city with the interior. 
Their aggregate length was one hundred and 
eighty-eight miles, and their average cost about 
$1500 per mile. "Milwaukee has six plank roads 
in process of construction and about one hundred 
miles completed."
In Illinois the movement became almost state­
wide. Plank roads radiated from almost every 
important town. The first "planking" was laid in
THE GENESIS OF PLANKING 295
Chicago during the summer of 1843, and accord­
ing to contemporary news reports it was still good, 
“showing scarcely any wear”, in 1851. In 1849, 
a general “Plank Road Corporation Act“ was 
passed by the State legislature, whereby compa­
nies might be readily formed for the purpose of 
constructing and managing plank roads. Previ­
ous to this, special charters were granted for indi­
vidual roads, three of which — the “North­
western“, the “Western“, and the “Southwest­
ern“ — extended outward from Chicago. These 
roads stretching westward toward Iowa, were of 
considerable interest to the people of this Com­
monwealth, as they formed an important link in 
the overland route to the region beyond the Mis­
sissippi. Thousands of early settlers and immi­
grants came that way.
Of these three, the first to be constructed was 
the “Southwestern“ road, which followed approx­
imately the present route of Ogden Avenue. It 
was begun in May, 1848, and by 1850 sixteen 
miles had been completed, reaching Brush Hill on 
the eastern boundary of Du Page County. As ex­
tensions to this road, the “Naperville and Os­
wego“, the “St. Charles and Warrenville“, the 
“Sycamore“, and the “Oswego and Little Rock“ 
roads were built, thus making a continuous line of 
plank roads leading out from Chicago for a dis­
296 THE PALIMPSEST
tance of sixty miles. These roads formed the main 
line which, together with the branch roads con­
necting it with small towns, made a network of im­
proved roads in the section of country lying south­
west of Chicago.
Supplementing the roads in this section, another 
company of interest to Iowans was organized 
under the name of the “Oswego and Indiana 
Plank Road Company’', which proposed to build 
a “Plank drive'' from Oswego, through Plainfield 
and Joliet to the Indiana State line. This would 
provide immigrants from the east with a more 
direct and convenient route to the west. A link in 
this highway was actually constructed, between 
Joliet and Plainfield, which remained in operation 
until March 15, 1869, when it was closed, result­
ing in a “complete financial failure". Those who 
had invested in it lost everything as was usually 
the case in most other ventures of like character.
A similar network of roads extended to the west 
and northwest of Chicago. In 1849 the “North­
western" plank road company, following the route 
of Milwaukee Avenue, began building to Oak 
Ridge, a distance of eight miles, and the next year 
the road was completed to Dutchman's Point. 
From this main line various feeders were thrown 
out to the Des Plaines River. The principal objec­
tive of this route was to form a connection with
THE GENESIS OF PLANKING 297
the important trading center of Wheeling and, by 
branch roads, to ‘secure for Chicago the surplus 
products of the entire Des Plaines Valley.”
Connecting with the “Northwestern” road at 
Oak Ridge was the “Western” plank road, run­
ning westward to the east line of Du Page County 
where it joined the “Elgin and Geneva Plank 
Road”, which ran through Elgin and terminated 
at Geneva, more than fifty miles distant from Chi­
cago.
Thus it will be seen that by the time the plank- 
road fever struck Iowa, about 1850, such high­
ways were not entirely an untried venture. On the 
contrary, the technique of plank-road construction 
was well advanced. The advantages of hard, 
smooth-surfaced highways were obvious. More­
over, several years use had demonstrated the 
practicability of planking immigrant and farm-to- 
market routes.
Ben Hur W ilson


The Genesis of Planking

The Palimpsest

https://pubs.lib.uiowa.edu/palimpsest/article/id/23681/download/pdf/

The Genesis of Planking

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Iowa Research Online

The Palimpsest