Thursday, September 26, 2019

A corduroy road / wash board road



Is a type of road or timber trackway made by placing logs, perpendicular to the direction of the road over a low or swampy area. The result is an improvement over impassable mud or dirt roads, yet rough in the best of conditions

Think it's named that because of a cord of wood?

From 1910 to 1913, there was a 3 mile long piece of corduroy log road to get into Glacier Natl Park from the rail road depot.


While digging up a street in Michigan’s Grand Haven Township, a team of construction workers recently unearthed 100 feet of a corduroy road that dates to the Civil War era under 168th Ave. The road was built in approximately 1855, when the area was a logging town.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/corduroy-road-civil-war-era-found-michigan-180964229/
https://www.facebook.com/GHTownship/posts/1464847620220106

Another was found (Halfway between Buffalo NY and Detroit) in Waterloo, Ontario, under King St, in about 1800


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/waterloo-corduroy-road-site-attracts-tourists-1.3545442

6 comments:

  1. think the road was named after the clothing,
    or the clothing named after the road,
    youre old enough to remember corduroy pants right?

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    1. I certainly am old enough, I had a pair, they were brown, I was in 3rd grade. I liked them a lot.
      PLease clarify the first 60% of your note... Are you asking me if I think it? Or that you think it, and what's your conclusion?

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  2. The name corduroy when applied to these kind of road comes from the fact that the surface looks like corduroy fabric that has a ribbed appearance not because it was made from cord wood.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corduroy_roadhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corduroy_road

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    Replies
    1. so it was the fabric, not the cord wood, that gave the road the name? Huh!

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  3. When I was preparing to teach a segment on the Civil War I learned that Sherman's Army often tore down houses, barns and fences rather than cutting down trees to build corduroy roads. In these days we rather automatically assume that if a structure was miss after Sherman's march it was because it was burned down,but now we know they were used to keep the army moving.

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    Replies
    1. whoa... that's some historical news! Thanks! Cool info!

      Delete