Decatur Daily Democrat, Volume 32, Number 266, Decatur, Adams County, 8 November 1934 — Page 8

Portions Os Old Plank Road Found During Construction Os Road 527 While making aome ot the deep | this observation of*ours is uot at er cuts southeast ot Pleasant Mills I all startling, not at all, auy one on state road 587 workmen dug up will admit that some one has to a few planks tploaging to the old start things, hut nevertheless for plank road built in 1850. us to philosophise about it corruThe plunk* ware well preserved gates our gray matter but when they were removed from Some one had to think the pyrathe ground and dried, became brit- m tds. the flivver, the telephone tie They were piled up and burn- an< j the thousand billion other things that have advanced us poor As it was not necessary to make mortals on the way to ease and many deep cuts in the road, the comfort. Some one had to think majority of it being tills, most of the Cumberland road from the I’o the original planks are stilled bur- tomac to Illinois and while he led far below the surface of the thought it soon after the landing koad- of Columbus, congress quarreled 1 rench yuiuj. local attorm . and about it until the year 1836 and historian, in a series of articles while it's true they splurged gome published in the Democrat sever.! a t its dedication they forgot to al years ago, wrote the following i give the original thinker auy cred t article on the plank road: ft al a ]] one could argue that it is The Plank Road , a sort <i u g e - a mixture of thoughts lu time Sam Rugg got busy und),n a t produces things but we inbuilt the Plank road ’ which he de- ; sist that the “way back behind’’ toured through Pleasant Mills and idea j a everlasting individual. Here Decatur on the west side of the j n our own county of Adams, there river and here is the story of that has been individuals that have famous road. done such individualistic thinking One of the things that interests and idea starting and accomplishus perhaps is that everything worth led quick results, quite unlike the while done or constructed, had tn ' Cumberland road proposition. All originate in some one fellow's i this above prologue brings us thought and that fellow have the down to the meat that we have everlasting nerve to talk right out been intending to carve, to-wit: in meetin’ to such good purpose The year 1850 had begun to blaztliat folks Would believe him and jeu its pathway across the maze act on his suggestion and lo’ and iof pioneer enthusiasms. Adams behold, the thing would be aieom- ( county was in what one might say. p'ished. Wonderful, isn't is? Now its mouiting stage and it was Congratulations —to YOST BROS, on the construction of the BRIDGES OM lighway 527. I We were pleased to have furnished TYDOL GAS for their equipment. Elbersou Service Station 1 —■ l ■ »«*■ When Passing Through PLEASANT MILLS Stop at \ Archsr’s Service Station And Fill Up With Phillips 66 Lee of Conshohoken Tires — Radios MESHBERGER’S WELL INSURED To be adequately protected against daily hazards, is a source of great satisfaction to any contractor and force of workmen. — The Berne Insurance Agency having furnished the bond, compensation insurance and business life insurance for this contract herewith extends its congratulations to the contractors, Meshberger Bros. Stone Co. and all others concerned, for this fine achievement 0. F. Gilliom G. C. Moser BERNE. IND.

Ijocal Men In Charge Os Program ' W 1 ♦ 1 v JHR T M • " * / I © **" wSSBMBre HKh Kjaßagiß.Wt W ard I ■ ’ A. R. HOLTHOUSE CLARK J. LUTZ JESSE RICE Arrangements for the formal dedication of the new state highway 587 were directed by the Decatur men pictured above. Arthur R. Holthouse acted as general chairman, Clark J. Lutz as master of ceremonies for the program: and Jesse Rice as chairman on arrangements.

moulting at a right smart place, i This and that had been from time! to time suggested but the suggest-! ors did not belong to th* class that we have above indicated and their following aggregated in most in stances themselves only. •'Howsoniever' as they said tn) those days, our old friend Samuel 1 L. Rttgg had a mentality that ordi. . nariiy worked at fever heat. He! had beett. as you know. for a long: time county recorder ami likewise simultaneously county clerk and to be truthful those dual occupa ; (tions were not so fatiguing to Sam-; luel as one might think, for he had! I time to be administrator, executor., guardian, counselor, assignee, trus-j 'tee. attorney at law. referee, saw ! i miller, flour miller, steamboat operator. land speculator, promoter! and very, very much etcetera. Samuel had listened for nigh onto fourteen weary years to hourly i complaints of all sundry regarding i everything that was potentially un i satisfactory in the fledging county 'and more particularly to violent I expressions of lurid expletives ev-l ery time the highway and byways] of the youthful county were mentioned. (Here may we parentheti-) cally state that those boys had! some right to kick, the highways' were very, very awful). Some thing; had to be done and Samuel was ‘ • and fundamentally and originally Samuel consulted his friend, Jo-L seph D. Nuttman Mr Nuttnian at. that time bad pretty well corral led d all the available cash and ite equivalent loose in the country. Says' Rugg to Nuttman. "Let's build a regular highway from the Ohio state line, smack dab across the; i county and on into Fort Wayne, i and relieve the atmosphere of ' some ot this sulphuric acid." "Let's build it of board, like a bridge, and < as it is only thirty miles from Willshire to Fort Wayne, we will only have to build one support at eachj end and we can charge enough toil ; 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.

“ lake Our Jobs—Well Steal Your Boy Friends!” ■f/’ 'W, : '' •fYdt'-'r ’ t.- i " 4SB f - ■ . mBB USB, ** ■ ■ ISn I H; B" AswßmWlfe I yWt J

"You take our jobs and we’ll take your boy friends!”—that is the edict fired by unemployed mannequins in New York City at society girls who have started to accept modeling jobs because, they aay, “we need the dough!” Two of the professional models involved m the scrap with the debutantes

DECATUR DAILY DEMOCRATThursday, November 8, 1934.

Therefore Hie Fort Wayne and ! I’uimi plank lomi limn Before we commence to tell a- ( I bout it, will you forgive us if we, | lake off our hat and salute thus. ■ .promoters? « To build was a great uudertak , : in It required nerve, push, money.; 1 labor and quite a sprinkling of! < trees. . j He it rememberd. there was al-1 ; ready a highway from Willshire i westward along the "devil's back I bone" twisting and squirming it-; i tortuous way to" Pleasant Mills | and then sinuously on unlangintlyi jit reached Decatur and then on via! Middletown until it reached the' I village of Fort Wayne. Thirteen' months out of She twelve, no team.! ' be they ox. horse or ass. could be' i driven on that road successfully I without the use of adjectives. Thbi (then, was all the trail that Samuel) I hud in mind to improve so prod ; igously. This is what he proposed' Ito bridge. He had thought it, by' ; gosh, and had hypnotised ail and; I sundry. Operations commenced. Maybe I about the year 1853. it was, but ! I anyway, it was dry weather when] | they started We presume they] (started in dry weather so as to sti-1 I mulate moral courage, as it j Now, there were certain specific I ‘ specification that must be adhered i to. Some of which were that noth- j ing but number one clear white ( 'oak plank should be nsed. without! kun; pr knot hole, eight feet long uMir-e»incbes thick and twelve inch ; ' s in width, lie laid side by side snugly and chumily. Stringers toj be laid underneath and to he four I by four's and of the same quality) of oak. Highways must be cleared 1 of stumps and a slight dump made.) On the west side ot 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. Thirty ' i two miles isn't so very far in these) days of the flivver, but we have | not Ijeen 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 and haul the planks We don't know how:

many men worked or how long they worked or whether they be- ! longed to the union. We know that , it took a hunk of sawmills to saw the planks and the saws they used. ! mind you. were the grauddadies ot -(he circular saws, run by steam al right, but had the characteristics! lof the cross cut saw, work up and ' '■down in true perpendicular fashion' Sand made a saw kerf that to the un-1 iitiated looked as if that was the': imain purposes of the effort rather' jthan to saw out planks Then those! I planks and stringers had to be de.) Slivered and laid and that took more' )oxen and by golly, it was a whale .of a job. You can see, easily enough, how ii was done, and so after a while it was all finished as fine as could jbe. We arc not very good at mathei matics but it those planks 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 as least' a million planks, perhaps. "Clear white oak"| —goodness me, oh, to have seen! I tise marvelous treee that towered heavenward so majestically. We asked one of our lumber yard j boys what such a plank would cost now-a days, and he said at least; ! five or six dollars. Can't you see I Samuel dealing in millions —board' measure and dollars and cents. I Without a doubt that was the I ‘ longest bridge in the world. Part j of the lime, in wet weather. |fte. ! suspect, it was a suspension bridge.' ! The toil, we are told, did not fully j ! support it. The thought, however i had become a materialized actuall ity. Folks at Pleasant Mills could! ( sit on the front porch of the vill- . age grocery sad chew gum and | spit on the planks. Folks at Deca)tur could sit on the trout porch of i perhaps a half dozen of tnich places J and do the same thing. The stream of planks undulated I gracefully righf down Main street : or Decatur, right past, Mr. Rugg's (court house and Mr NuttmanVs bank and general merchandise erui porium and those gentlement could : see their handiwork any time they

are Alice Berman, left, and Sylvia Traub. Bea Hudson, top, daughter of the socially prominent Mr. and Mrs. Ernest R. Hudson, and Elsie Little, below, daughter of Mrs. Kobbel Little, society leader, are two of the "working girl” socialites, now modeling.

I might care to wade out io do so. Tiio highway, however, had *o«>* obstructions, namely; Toll gales I That meant that every so often, j as much as the public would stand was a toll gste. A gate tender Hrled nearby and collected so much I per each according to the size of the vehicle and perhaps a little ex | tea from a foreign licunse plate. At I any rate no one in any way was I displeased Other folks extended [the road from Willshire to Bt. I Mary’s and folks from Cincinnati way could barge up the canal to St. Marys and play bridge all the way to Port Wayn*-* Bully for Rugg and Nuttman and Pliny Hoagland and al! the rest of them. Year aflsr year all went as merry as wedding bells. Blit alas, camo the days ol trouble. Planks wore out, busted, cracked and splintered. Stringers snapped and drivers suarled Repair gangs went on strike and by 1862, life with that plank road was simply one dog gone thing after another. They tell us that the Fort Wayne gang kept on changing toll from Middletown on into Fort Wayne as long at ’till 1866. At least, my friends, that was one chapter in our country's history- ‘Twas a glorious chapter—while It lasted. So. after all, it was some fellow's

Congratulations to Meshberger iq WE CONGRATULATE THE MESHBERGER BROTHERS ON TH I BUILDING OF THE SPLENDID NEW HIGHWAY. 527. LNDAbI PROUD TO ANNOUNCE TH AT THEY ARE ENTHUSIASTIC I SBftfOf I SINCLAIR GASOLINE and LUBRICATING « I GOODRICH TIRES I EASTERN INDIANA OIL AND SUPPLY COM. Geneva—Bryant—Berne—Monroe—Portland—Decatur I ■■■'■ ■" " 1 • . ■ ■ —— STANDARD 1 OIL COMPANI OF INDIANA * ‘ I And WILLIAM KURNLE (Decatur District Manager) Are proud of the New Highway 527, and appreciate the prive- • lege they had in furnishing the the asphalt for its construction. Congratulations to Meshberger Bros., the builders, for the splendid way in which they have used our material. i I Congratulations to both MESHBERGER BROS. —and YOST BROS. on the construction of the beautiful new Road and Bridges extending from Decatur to the Ohio State Line. We’re Proud of it and we Know everyone in this community is Pro u d oL h too. CITIZENS TELEPHONE CO.

ANTARES Thu largcxt and ■m«li«at thing,, ln Ull> ~ I ton Bureau has ready for you « |„, w n . Ulllv srw , ■ ing five thousand words of d. -o riptH- toiXl largeat and smalleat thing-s, aiphabeti. all??* w 4 ktall ence. Fill out th* coupon below aH ,< ~..j i ‘ run i'«u 1/’’l < MP COl PON K ll: *1 Dept. 310, Washington Bureau, Daily ntu, ! 1322 New York Ava nue . W, s h, no ? EM ? C M, I want u copy of the bulletin i.\kGi-V' C I THINGS, and enclos.- herewith live <.»(. ' H,j ed), or loose uncaneelled I'. S. postal <i' olli "»xt3 age and handling costs: ‘ " |w ’ 10 p j NAME I STREET * No. I CITY | itatb I lam a reader of the Decatur Daily Dem.x-nt., n, T

thought materialized May we aay. that we have al ways felt that lack of appreciation of stupendous effort was one of of our weaknesses but in this inMance, we feel that any man who could sell an idea like that could certainly sell harness to Henry Ford. ■ ■ ■-o- ——■ -— CCC Camp Hunters Warned Deadwood. S. D. '|' — With the big game hunting season approaching, general warnings have been issued by rangers in the Black Hills that because ot numerous C

| CC cami ' s - ninroisTj • tionally (arefu | > tit”" oecurod <!«„ t land hunting S eas<JjJ • Theodore Kreuth ) Hills National j I to close the area to, ,ul r season. ‘s*l City t<>»| i a J "hen the British tolem In ion it « 1 ..2,T • that the tity hid ,] , If CTriatlans slot, the J t Hie Eleventh. T«tj. J ’ leenth cectunea 1