SUSSEX COUNTY ROADS 1924

SUSSEX COUNTY ROADS 1924

A news paper article from the Milford Chronicle in the Monday, February 18, 1924 Wilmington

Morning News, indicates a dispute bewtween the State of Delaware Highway Department and the

Sussex County Farm Bureau, toward the building of concrete surface roads against the dirt shell top

roads, as were built during the past.

It is well known that the dirt roads with oyster shell tops fail to stand the wear of carriage and wagon traffic which was in general ten years ago. That type of road 'cut' badly during the wet winter

weather, and, during summer the dry winds blew the oyster shells, dust and all, into the ditches, yards and fields and at their best, made temporary roads.

These dirt, oyster shell top, roads cost about $5000 per mile in those days when labor was

only a $1 a day and the oyster shells were sold at the oyster sheds for two or three cents a bushel.

Now, labor is $4 to $5 per day and oyster shells are delivered by train at ten cents a bushel. These

cost would make the graded dirt oyster shell top roads cost almost $15,000 per mile, depending on the location. This cost, according to the Sussex County Farm Bureau, is half the cost of a concrete

road. However, the concrete road would be permanent and usable every day in the year while the graded dirt shell top road is good for a brief , two or three years at the most, before they must be

resurfaced at a heavy cost.

It is fact that there are many Sussex county roads with very light traffic and that gravel roads would meet the requirements, and which it would be wasteful to construct concrete surface highways.

Wilmington Morning News 18 February 1924. Absract: September 2, 2017: Harrison