Corduroy road below Broadway

Feb. 6, 1958 Southeast Missourian

Digging out logs on Broadway

Workmen excavating for the Broadway sewer have unearthed an old corduroy road buried and long forgotten beneath the pavement in the 400 block. The road is made of old logs, set only a few inches apart and starting near the Broadway entrance of the Rueseler parking lot. (G.D. Fronabarger photo)

Sewer Excavators Dig Up Long Buried Road of Logs

Workmen excavating for the Broadway sewer have unearthed an old corduroy road buried and long forgotten beneath the pavement in the 400 block.

The road is made of old logs, set only a few inches apart and starting near the Broadway entrance of the Rueseler parking lot. Its full length is not known, since at the halt of work Wednesday workmen were still continuing to excavate along its route.

The logs are buried approximately three feet beneath the pavement. They range up to about one foot in diameter and show the road moved westward.

There was debate over the kind of logs used. Cecil Lear, contractor for the job, said those he had examined were of white oak. Others thought they were cypress.

In either case, they were solid as the day they were laid, and perhaps even harder as they aged beneath the pavement.

A trenching machine was unable to break the logs as it dug the earth from beneath them, and it was necessary to place a man with a sharp axe in the trench to cut them partially through before the machine could break off the ends.

It was difficult to determine when the old corduroy road was placed. City Engineer John R. Walther said as far as he knew there are no records of its construction.

He related there was a pond and low area to the north of the block many years ago and surmised that the ground was marshy where Broadway crossed just below it. This would have been the reason for the use of the log road to allow wagon and buggy traffic to move out Broadway to the west.

Some who observed the old logs guessed they had been there 65 to 75 years. Others thought the road was in existence before that.

Here is an earlier blog which shows that Broadway was paved with wood blocks before concrete was used.