With the recent discussion on street paving, I thought Id repost this. Brick Street Pavers - 1906 S. Compton, north of Meramec Looking south, you can see one spire of St. Anthony of Padua in the background St Louis paved its first street in the 1820s. Then known as Main Street, we now call it Broadway, & it was a wood plank road in the small downtown area of that day. Between 1870 & 1871, 23 different contractors built city streets. Four years later, there were 36. No plans had to be submitted, & the contract was always awarded to the lowest bidder. Many times, the streets had legally been laid out, but obstructed by fences of landowners who still considered it part of their property. Ann Avenue, west of Mississippi Avenue, was declared open in 1871, but the landowner erected a private racetrack on the property. It took city leaders two decades to notice. Utah Street, west of Lemp, had been made a street in 1854, but twenty years later, it was no more than a walking path. Building streets also presented several other problems. One involved which material to use. During the time many of the streets were built, property owners paid the entire cost of construction, & maintenance for one year. It then became the responsibility of the City. Landowners would petition the city to have their street paved, & give their preference in what material was used. But the Street Department made the final decision, which led to lawsuits & subsequent delays. For decades, it was unclear which type of pavement would be best, in terms of cost & durability. Granite cobblestone, brick, macadam, asphalt, wood block, & a bitulithic product were used. The last named product is a mixture of tar & concrete, & being a patented product, the company using it had a monopoly, which brought about more lawsuits & charges of corruption. By 1889, St Louis had over 40 miles of streets paved with granite, but then, as now, people complained of the noise, as well as the wear & tear on vehicles. Wood blocks, usually made of cedar, were being used extensively in Chicago & Detroit, & they also proved popular here. Although virtually noise-free & only half the cost of granite, they became slippery when wet. Between 1884 & 1892, StL covered eight miles of streets with wood block. The last wood pavement in StL was laid on Franklin Avenue in 1892, but Westminster, a private street, put down creosoted yellow pine blocks in 1902. Vitrified brick, which is impervious to water, was tested in 1892, & was first put into use in StL in 1895. Although some has since been covered with concrete or asphalt, the city once had 485 miles of brick streets & alleys. By 1917, the city had 673 miles of paved streets, but even then were still unsure of the best paving material. In 1922, Arsenal Street, from Broadway to Gravois was paved with granite on the east-bound lanes, & asphalt going west. Watson Road, from Southwest Avenue to the city limits, was half concrete & half macadam.
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 00:21:22 +0000
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