18 Wheels Of Steel Across America Crack Download

[Quinton Hebenstreit]

GovernorMcKinley became President on March 4, 1897, and served until he was assassinated in 1901. The new President retained General Stone in the ORI, but brought Dodge to Washington at the first opportunity. In June 1898, General Stone took a leave of absence to serve in the Spanish-American War. While Stone was away, President McKinley brought Dodge to Washington in August as Acting Director of the little ORI. General Stone returned to the Office on January 31, 1899, but resigned later that year on October 23. This time, Dodge was appointed permanent Director. According to Dodge, the opportunity arose when he "completed my term of service as senator in the state senate of Ohio." [ National Republic, p. 26]

President McKinley's Secretary of Agriculture, James Wilson, had a more aggressive approach than his predecessor, Secretary J. Sterling Morton, under President Grover Cleveland. Secretary Morton, a fiscal conservative opposed to all forms of government "paternalism," had spent much of his tenure trying to reduce the Department's expenditures and role. He had limited General Stone to gathering information and disseminating it. By contrast, the Department's official history stated that Secretary Wilson's 16 years as Secretary (1897-1913) marked "a new era . . . for the Department, one characterized by expansion, the widening of the scope of its activities, and the strengthening of the relationship between the Department and the land-grant colleges." [Centennial Committee, Century of Service: The First 100 Years of the United States Department of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture, 1963, p. 39]

Wilson, known as "Tama Jim" after his hometown in Iowa, had been a professor at Iowa Agricultural College, served in the Iowa State Legislature and the U.S. House of Representatives, and had introduced the first bill, in 1874, to elevate the existing Department of Agriculture to a Cabinet-level Department. [p. 40] Consistent with his general approach, Secretary Wilson wanted General Stone to "push the practical side of our work in preference to the academic," as Stone put it in his annual report for fiscal year 1897. [p. 173]

In accordance with the Secretary's injunction, General Stone initiated an object-lesson roads program modeled on a similar program by the Massachusetts State Highway Commission. The idea was to build short stretches of road on or near State experimental farms for demonstration purposes on the theory that "seeing is believing"-that short stretches of good road would encourage the public to want more such roads. As explained in America's Highways 1776-1976: "These would serve to instruct the roadmakers, to educate the visiting public and to improve the economic administration of the farms." [p. 45]

No funds being provided by Congress for actual road construction, I have been compelled to carry on road building by means of contributions from the various parties interested, viz, the agricultural colleges and experiment stations, the citizens concerned, and the manufacturers of road implements and machinery; the Road Inquiry contributing only a small installment of the expenses, through the payment of freight on machinery and part payment of wages of experts sent in charge of the machines, but keeping full control of the construction in order that the roads may be creditable to the Government when done. [p. 173-174]

With an investment of $300 to $500 in Federal funds for each locality, the Office could build from $2,000 to $10,000 worth of road. [ America's Highways 1776-1976, p. 46] The first object-lesson roads, on Nichol Avenue and College Avenue, were built at the Agricultural College and Experiment Station in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in June 1897. The ORI team improved 660 feet of Nichol Avenue with crushed rock from the cross street to the gate of the farm. Because of the difficulty of obtaining materials, ORI was able to provide crushed stone for only a portion of the planned 500-foot College Avenue project; the work was completed by local authorities. [Stone, Roy, "Object-Lesson Roads," United States Department of Agriculture Yearbook, 1897, p.376]

Although the object-lesson roads would demonstrate the latest techniques in road building and encourage their adoption, Secretary Wilson wanted General Stone to explore experimental methods as well. As historian Philip P. Mason explained:

The Office of Road Inquiry also was interested in the building of sample roads for purely experimental purposes in order to gain first-hand knowledge of the best methods of road construction. This program differed from the object-lesson road work in that the federal government paid all of the expenses . . . .

In the 1880's and 1890's . . . the main emphasis of road reformers was on hard-surfaced or macadam roads. It was soon discovered, however, that not only was this type of construction too expensive for most rural communities, but that many areas of the country lacked the gravel, rock or other hard material necessary to build such roads. The Office of Road Inquiry was soon aware of this problem and began to conduct experiments in 1897 with other types of road materials. [Mason, Philip P., The League of American Wheelmen and the Good Roads Movement, 1880-1905, Ph. D. dissertation, 1957, University Microfilms International, p. 162-163]

As the number of motor vehicles increased, the problem would worsen because broken stone road surfaces, such as macadam, that served horses and wagons were not suited to automobile tires. The search for a suitable surface would continue into 1910s, with asphalt and concrete overtaking macadam, bricks, stone-clay, and other materials as the dominant surfacing materials for the automobile age.

Secretary Wilson wanted General Stone to focus initially on steel roadways. Dodge, who had not yet been appointed Acting Director, stated that he convinced the Secretary of the practicality of the concept. In the Department of Agriculture Yearbook for 1898, Dodge discussed his involvement, dating to 1891, with steel-track wagon roads. [p. 291-296] The principal advantages in any surfacing material, he said, were cheapness, durability, and reduction of power required to move a vehicle. He believed that everyone agreed that steel tracks offered the advantages of cheapness and durability, but acknowledged that in reference to cost and manner of construction, "there is great diversity of opinion." He disagreed with earlier plans, proposed in 1894 and discussed during the National Road Conference in Asbury Park, where the steel tracks were placed on wooden substructures. He explained:

This wooden substructure adds to the cost of construction without adding to the real value or utility of the road, and can therefore be omitted with advantage, provided we can so adapt the steel track to the roadbed that it will combine with the materials composing the latter in such a way as to form a substantial and integral part of it.

Mr. Abel Bliss of New Lenox, Illinois, and Mr. F. Melber of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, had put down short experimental sections, only 25-30 feet long, reflecting what Dodge considered "the best form of construction," but the sections were too short "to furnish any full and sufficient tests as to the value and utility of such roads." In the fall of 1897, Dodge said, he had conducted the first true test of the value of steel-track wagon roads:

At that time the county commissioners of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, authorized the writer, by contract, to lay 500 feet of steel track on the Brecksville road, immediately south of the city limits of Cleveland. The form chosen for this track was one designed and recommended by Mr. Melber, but without the wooden substructure provided for by him in 1894. This track was not completed till June, 1898, and has been somewhat disturbed and obstructed since by reason of grading done adjacent to the track by the contractor, who was charged with carrying out more extensive improvements on the Brecksville road. The track, when completed, presented a fine appearance, and will doubtless give satisfactory results, but sufficient time has not yet elapsed to test it thoroughly in every respect.

With the Secretary's backing, General Stone initiated the experimental work by contacting the principal steel manufacturers, which offered construction plans. Stone favored a proposal by the Cambria Iron Company of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. In his annual report for FY 1897, he said:

Upon investigating what has been already done by private experiment I am confirmed in my former opinion that a well-designed steel trackway can be successfully built and will be profitable to use and maintain, especially in localities where other road materials are scarce.

The considerable expense involved in preparing to roll special shapes of rail has prevented much experiment in this direction heretofore, but the Cambria Iron Company is disposed to aid in the matter and will undertake this expense whenever a definite order for 1 mile of road shall be received. I have not succeeded as yet in getting such order and it will probably be necessary to ask Congress for a small appropriation for this purpose. The cost of material for a mile of road will be $3,500. It will be advisable to put this down in several places, widely separated, in order that the test may be more complete and the exhibition more thorough. [p. 174-175]

Stone did not say so, but the Office was aware of Dodge's work in Cuyahoga County. The annual report for FY 1989, drafted by Assistant Director M. O. Eldridge and submitted by Acting Director Dodge, described Dodge's work:

This road is composed of inverted channel bars placed in such a position that they become a tramway or trackway. A broken-stone surface has been prepared for the horses to walk upon, and to enable the teamsters to take their wagons on and off the road at will. The road is laid in a street on which there is a large amount of heavy traffic and has already demonstrated the great value of steel in road construction. [p. 161]

3a8082e126