Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 August 1919 — FORD CAR RUNS OFF GRADE [ARTICLE]

FORD CAR RUNS OFF GRADE

At Burk Bridge Tuesday Afternoon —Occupants Unhurt. A party of three Chicago people, consisting of a gentleman, his wife and daughter, enroute from Chicago to Lafayette and driving a Ford car, went off the grade at the Burk bridge, 4 miles north of Rensselaer, Tuesday afternoon. They had been putting on some fresh gravel where the grade has sunken down again and the driver of the car got over a little too far at one side and saw that the car was going to slide off the grade, so he turned it straight for the ditch end went down into the water, which was not more than a foot deep at this point. The daughter received a slight cut on the forehead but the other occupants escaped injury. The car was practically undamaged. James Britt of Barkley township, who came along, brought the women to town while the owner of the car rescued same from the ditch with the assistance of several others who came along. It would seem that it would be good business policy to haul in a •number of good-sized poles or small trees and put at each side of this grade where it has been giving trouble for the past few years, to assist in holding up the grade and prevent the water from lapping it away whenever the river gets high enough to overflow back to this point. There are also hundreds of loads of "nlggetheads” within a half to three-fourths of a mile of the grade that could be had for the taking, and they would also help to hold this grade, and it would certainly be less expensive to put them in than continually dumping gravel thereon.