Decatur Daily Democrat, Volume 27, Number 136, Decatur, Adams County, 7 June 1929 — Page 5

Adams County, Way Back When-- . Before 1890 Up The Interesting History Os The County. By French Quinn.

The Plank Road ! )n t | in e Sam Rugg got busy and built the "Plank road" which he detoured through Pheasant Milla and pecatur on the west aide of the river god here is the story of that famous of the things that Interests us hapfl js that everything worth irtiile done or constructed, had to origlnut' in some one fellow's thought Md that fellow have the everlasting prve to talk right out in meetin' to B uch g oort Purpose that fc'ks would IjgUevo him and act on his suggestion •nd lo' and behold, the thing would be accomplished. Wonderful, isn't it? Now this observation of ours is not at all startling, not at all, any one will admit that some one has to start things, but nevertheless for us to philosophize about it corrugates outgray matter. Some one had to think the pyramids. the flivver, the telephone and the thousand billion other things that have advanced us poor mortals on the way to ease and comfort. Some one had to think the Cumberland road from the Potomac to Illinois and while he thought it soon after the landing of Columbus, congress quarreled about it until the year 1836 and while its true they splurged some at its dedication they forgot to give the original thinker any credit at all. One could argue that it is a sort of a duke's mixture of thoughts that produces things but we insist that the "way back behind" idea is everlasting individual. Here in our own county of Adams, there has been individuals that have done such individualistic thinking and idea starting and accomplished quick results, quits unlike the Cumberland road proposition. All this above prologue brings us down to the meat that we have been intending to carve, to-wit: The year 1850 had begun to blazen Its pathway across the maze of pioneer enthusiasms. Adams county was In what one might say, its moulting stage and it was moulting at a right smart place. This and that had been from lime to time suggested but the suggestors did not belong to the class that we have above indicated and

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their .following aggregated In most instances themselves only. "How.omeever" as they said i n those days, our old friend Sumuel L. Rugg had amentality that ordlmwllv worked at fever heat. He had been as you know, for a long time county recorder and likewise simultaneously county clerk and to be truthful those dual occupations were not so fatiguing to Samuel as one might think, for he had time to he administrator, executor, guardian, counselor, assignee, trustee, attorney at law. referee, sawmiller, flourmiller, steamboat operator, land speculator, promoter and Very, very much etcetera. Samuel had listened for night onto fourteen weary years to hourly complaints of all and sundry regarding everything that was potentially unsatisfactory in the fledging county and more particularly to violent expressions of lurid explotives every time the highways and byways of the youthful county were mentioned. (Here may we parenthetically state that those boys had some right to kick, the highways were very very awful). Something had to be done and Samuel was the lad who could think basically and fundamentally and originally. Samuel consulted his friend, Joseph D. Nuttman. Mr. Nuttman at that time had pretty well corralled all the available cash and its equivalent loose in the country. Says Rugg to Nuttman, "Ijet’s build a regular highway from the Ohio state line, smack dab across the county and on into Fort Wayne and relieve the atmosphere of some of this sulphuric acid." "Let's build it of boards, like a bridge, and as it is only thirty miles from Willshire lo Fort Wayne, we will only have to build one support at each end and we can charge enough toll to hold it up in the middle.” Nuttman fell for it and the lads at Fort Wayne got into the game, actually believing Samuel, and the scheme was commenced to be done. Therefore the Fort Wayne and Piqua plank road was born. Before we commence to tell about it, will you forgive us if we take off our hat and salute those promoters? To build was a great undertaking.

DECATUR DAILY. DEMOCRAT FRIDAY, JUNE 7,1929. -W

It required nerve, pu«h, m >ney, labor 1 and quite * aprlngling of trees. t Be it remembered, there was al- t ready a highway, auch ae it was, that 1 run from Willshire westward along ’ the "devil's back bone” twisting and J squirming its tortuous way to Pleasant Mills and then sinuously on un- , tanglntly It reached Decatur and then on via Middletown until It reached , the village of Fort Wayne. Thirteen months out of the twelve, on team, be , they ox, horse or ass, could he driven on that road successfully without the use of adjectives. This then, was all the trail that Samuel had in mind to Improve so prodlgously. This is what he proposed to bridge. He had thought it, by gosh, and had hypnotised all and sundry. Operations commenced. Maybe about the year 1853, it was, but anyway, It was dry weather when they started. We presume they started In dry weather so as to stimulate moral courage, as it were. Now, there was certain specific specifications that must be adhered to. Some of which were that nothing but number one clear white oak plank should be used, without knot or knot hole, eight feet long, three inches thick and twelve inches in width, be laid side by side snugly and chumlly. Stringers to be laid underneath and to be four by four's and of the same quality of oak. Highway must be cleared of stumps and a slight dump made. On the west side of the plank road to construct a graded dirt road and on each side of highway ditches to be cut to a certain depthness. Then the fun commenced. Thirtytwo miles isn't so very far in these days of the flivver, but we have not been able to learn how many teams of oxen it took to pull the stumps and grade the right of way and scoop out the ditches an dhaul the planks. We don't know how many men worked or how long they worked or whether they belonged to the union. We know that it took a little hvtnk of sawmills to saw the planks and the saws, they used mind you, were the granddades of the circular saws, rux by steam all right, but had the characteristics of the cross cut saw, w-ork up and down in true perpendicular fashion and made a saw kerf that to i the uninitiated looked as if that was the main purpose of the effort rather than to saw out planks. Then those . planks and stringers had to be de- > livered and laid and that took more oxen and by golly, it was a whale of I a job. You can see, easily enough, how it I was done, and so after a while it was f all finished as fine as could be. We are not very good in matha matics but if those plank were a foot

wide and there are so many feet in a mile and there was thirty-two miles all together, there must have been at least a million planks, pemapr. -Clear white oak"-—goodness me, oh, to have seen the marvelous trees that towered heavenward so majestically. We asked one of our lumber yard boys what such a plank would cost now a days, and he said at least five or six dollars. Can’t you see Samuel was dealing in millions—board measure and dollars and cents. Without a doubt that was the longest bridge in t,he world. Part of the time, in wet. weather, we suspect, it was a suspension bridge. The toll, we ere told, did not fully support it. The thought, however had become a materialized actuality. Folks at Pleasant Mills could sit on the front porch of the village grocery and chew gum and spit on the planks. Folks at De catur could sit on the front porch of perhaps a half dozen of such places and do the same thing. The stream of planks unlulated gracefully right down Main street of Decatur, right past Mr. Rugg s court house and Mr. Nuttman’s bank ami general merchandise emporium and those gentlemen could see their handiwork any time they might care to wade out to do so. The highway, however, bad some obstructions, namely: Toll gates. That meant that every so often, as much as the public would stand, was a toll gate. A gate tender lived nearby and collected so much per each according to the size of the vehicle

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ami perhapa a little extra from a foreign licettHe plate. At any rate no one in any way was dlHpleaned. Other folks extended tne road from Wil! ah Ire to St. Mary’n and folks from Cincinnati way could barge up the canal to St. Marya and play bridge all the way to Fort Wayne. Bully for Rugg and Nuttman and Pliny Hoagland and all the rent of them. Year after year all went as merry uh wedding bellH. But alau, came the days of trouble. Planks wore out, busted, cracked and splintered, Stringers snapped and drivers snarled. Repair gangs weut on strike and by 1862, life with that plank road was simply one doggone thing after another. They tell us that the Fort Wayne gang kept on charging toll i from Middletown on Into Fort Wayne i as long as 'till 1866. As least, my friends, that was one ' chapter In our county's history. 'Twas 1 a glorious chapter while it lasted. So. after all, It was some fellow's I thought materialized. f May we qay, that we have always felt that lack of appreciation of stu--1 pendous effort was one of our weakI nesses hut in this instance, we feel • tha) any man would could sell an idea > like that could certainly sell harness to Henry Ford. > o HAVE YOU SEEN IT? ' ABIE’S IRISH ROSE! SEE it ' on the screen at the ADAMS THEATRE! 134t3 1 o ■ Get the Habit—Trade at Home. It Pays

Illinois Man Opens Movie Theatre At Berne Berne, June 7 — (Special)— Begin ning Thursuay evening, residents of Berne will again have a motion picture show*to attend when In quest of entertainment. Mr. and Mrs. H. J. Strickler, of Sheldon 111., have con- . tracted for the local theater and will

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endeavor to show only firat class and new pictures. Mr. Strickler waa in the gai'Hge buslOßM ttt Sheldon SEE NAN( Y”C ARR OL L DANCE! HEAR HER SING the theme songs of ABIES IRISH ROSE! 13413 . ----- Dance to the Rythm orchestra Sunday night at Sunset.