Plank Roads

This article is from the 2017 edition of the RCHS Spring Newsletter. RCHS is working to share more of our content digitally.

Mud! Unless 21^st Century Americans go hiking in the spring, or after a heavy rain storm, mud doesn’t hinder them from doing much. Most roads are hard surfaced, or at lease gravel based, so few people worry about getting a vehicle stuck in the mud in the springtime – except for those with a long-rural driveway with little gravel on it. That was not the case in the 19^th Century or early decades of the 20^th Century.

Mud was the curse of springtime in earlier days. Stagecoaches, wagons, and buggies pulled by horses got stuck in it. For the first automobiles, too, mud became a springtime struggle. Cars quickly got mired in muddy roads.

With that in mind, the idea of plank roads as an advance in road building is understandable. The advent and heyday of plank roads were in the 1840s and 1850s. For a short period of time in the early 20^th Century, when the first automobiles first hit the roads, plank roads – at least through the bogs and wet  areas appeared again as a good idea.

A plank road was a dirt path or road covered with a series of wooden planks. And, in Rice County, there was the “Faribault and Cannon City Gravel and Plank Road Company.” It was formed in 1857, according to the research of Larry Richie, a RCHS volunteer, and a Richland Township resident.

Nationwide, plank roads took off in the decades before the Civil War. However, plank roads were only plausible in areas where there were forests nearby for the lumber to build them.

In Rice County, a plank road between Faribault and Cannon City made good sense. Stagecoaches and wagons which used the road got mired in mud because of a high water table on the east side of Faribault, and much of the way to Cannon City.

The high water table is caused from limestone and sandstone being just a few feet below the soil of the ground cover. A plank road between Faribault and Cannon City made a dry surface and eliminated the risk of getting stuck in the mud. Building a plank road between the two cities made sense at the time, being that the road to Cannon City was the major road from Faribault north to Northfield.

According to national research on plank roads history, most plank roads were just wider than a large set of train tracks offering one-way traffic. Places to pull over,  should other traffic be encountered, were designated in the road. Ditches were dug on each side of the plank road to drain water and keep mud from accumulating on planks.

The planks themselves average 8-feet long and were the size and depth of railroad ties.

Often builders of plank roads were allowed by the state governments to collect a toll to help pay for them. That was the case with the Faribault and Cannon City Gravel and Plank Road Co. The firm was allowed to collect 10 cents a mile for vehicles drawn by two horses and 5 cents a mile for a one-horse vehicle.

The plank road between Faribault and Cannon City had a great advantage for stagecoaches that otherwise would often get stuck in the mud on roads in the springtime. The plank road was also one mile shorter than the old St. Paul Road into Faribault and allowed horses a steadier gallop on it, getting passengers to Faribault quicker.

The cost to build a plank road was several hundred dollars to several thousand dollars a mile, depending upon climate conditions, terrain, and how nearby a source of lumber was located, according to national history gathered on plank roads.

In the case of the plank road from Faribault to Cannon City, it is not known if the entire road was planked, but for sure it is believed that what is today’s 14^th Street Northeast hill, and the crossing of creeks, and other wet areas of the road, were planked.

During the 1840s and 1850s, when plank roads started to appear, they were seen as a progressive idea to enhance travel and get goods to market quicker. However, the downside to plank roads is that after a few years of wear, planks begin to warp or even rot away. Repairs were costly.

For that reason, plank roads fell into history as railroads expanded across the country. For those interested in seeing a plank road, there is a section of a plank road that is part of a bicycle path, east of the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis.

When the Mill City Museum first opened in Minneapolis, planking made up the street on its eastside, as well as the bike path. However, due to rotting on the planking, the “plank road” installed for historical purposes was taken out. It was left for the bike trail, but proved impractical as a covering for a street – and that also proved true with earlier plank roads.

– Pauline Schreiber, RCHS volunteer