Highway Chronicle Chapter VII:
New
Pavement Techniques are Celebrated
In
1867, High Street, between Friend and Naghten Streets, became the first paved
boulevard in Franklin County when wooden blocks were laid side by side nearly a
foot deep in the earthen surface.
Asphalt
pavement, which evolved from the mixing of coal tar with roadway aggregates to
create firmly bound surfaces, was heralded with a promenade concert at the State
House in 1873 following the resurfacing of High Street.
Colonel N.B.
Abbott was contracted to build the county’s first pavements with asphalt,
imported from Trinidad, on State Street, from High Street to Third Avenue, in
1876, and a three-mile stretch of High Street, from Naghten Street to the
Columbus north corporation line, in 1877.
Heavy wear led
to the reconstruction of High Street in the downtown area with Medina Stone and
Georgia Granite block in 1885, and later Trinidad Asphalt in 1915.
George
Bartholomew, inventor and founder of The Buckeye Portland Cement Company, was
honored at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago for his construction
of the nation’s first concrete streets in Bellefontaine, Ohio in 1891. This
accolade inspired another famed inventor, Milan, Ohio native Thomas Edison to
further develop the new road-building technology. The Edison Portland Cement
Company laid the nation’s “first mile” of concrete pavement, in 1912,
during the construction of the Morris Turnpike (S.R. 57) near New Village, New
Jersey.
Ohio’s first
major stretch of concrete highway was laid in 1923 during the construction of
the Warren G. Harding Highway (U.S. Route 30), near Lima, which was part of the
cross-country Lincoln Highway system.
In 1925, Broad
Street became the first thoroughfare in Franklin County to be paved with
concrete.
Next Chapter:
Streetcars
Provide Reliable Mud-Free Travel
Highway
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