Camino del Norte: How a Series of Watering Holes, Fords, and Dirt Trails Evolved into Interstate 35 in Texas

Good Roads for Texas, 1870–1917

130 Good Roads for Texas, 1870–1917 OLLOWING twenty years of feverish railway expansion in Texas, most of the right-of-way segments of future Interstate 35 had been staked out by two major rail lines and a portion of a third. The I&GN ran between Laredo, San Antonio, Austin, and Round Rock. The M-K-T (Katy) was set to operate between San Antonio and Denison via Austin, Georgetown, Granger, and Waco, splitting at Hillsboro like I-35 to Dallas and Fort Worth, and then rejoining at Denton, again like I-35. The Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe ran slightly west of today’s I-35 Corridor between Temple, Cleburne, and Fort Worth en route to Gainesville. As one might expect, highways had received little attention during the railroad boom and continued to be managed—or more accurately, neglected—by the same old ineffective system of compulsory work crews. However, the railroad boom prompted a surge in county bridge projects, driven by railroad needs, not highways. Texas was late to bridge building because it had too many rivers to be crossed and too little money to finance the crossings. Most of the wagon bridges that were built were inclined to fail or wash away. But fortunately for Texas, by the time that its citizens were finally in a position to fund bridge projects, bridge construction technology had advanced spectacularly. OFF-RAMP: BRIDGE-BUILDING INNOVATIONS As early as 1825, Thomas Telford had constructed a massive 1,710-foot-long suspension bridge across the Menai Strait between the Isle of Anglesey and ∑ Wales. Truss and cast-iron railway bridges appeared regularly after 1830, highlighted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ $39,902, 80-foot cast-iron bridge across Dunlap’s Creek in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, in 1839 and Squire Whipple ’s improvements to structural stress and strain calculations in 1841. More dramatic structures lay ahead. Benefiting from Charles Ellett’s Wheeling Suspension Bridge (1849), John A. Roebling built an 820-foot double-deck railway suspension bridge at Niagara Falls in 1855 and the Cincinnati Suspension Bridge in 1867. In 1874, James B. Eads responded with the first steel arch bridge across the Mississippi River in St. Louis, a project that required seven years of work (and controversy) and the introduction of pneumatic caisson foundations and portland cement. Eads’s innovations helped to facilitate the construction of the magnificent Brooklyn Bridge, a structure designed by John A. Roebling but completed by his remarkable son Washington in 1883.1 In Texas, cash-strapped county commissions must have been affected by the spectacular bridge projects that were sweeping the nation. One community even acted in astonishing fashion. On January 6, 1870, after nearly two years of construction and a jaw-dropping cost-overrun of over $100,000, Waco opened a majestic suspension bridge of its own across the Brazos River. The first major suspension bridge in Texas was built by private enterprise. The Waco Bridge Company, capitalized at $50,000 with 57 local shareholders, had received a 25-year charter in 1866 when Waco’s population stood at just 1,500 and post-war city and county finances were virtually nonexistent.2 Designed by John A. Roebling and built by chief engineer Thomas M. Griffith and Trice Brothers of Waco, Waco’s 475-foot wire and cable bridge was intended to replace Shapley P. Ross’s old ferry service—still functional but plagued by occasional high waters. The new bridge, with a wooden roadway wide enough for two stagecoaches, led travelers across the Brazos to East Waco and the Preston Road to Dallas. Land on the west bank had been donated by Jacob De Cordova in 1849. Land on the east bank was acquired by the city and county for $1,720.3 The directors of the Waco Bridge Company could have chosen a more conventional iron bridge design. Instead, they opted for the relatively new suspension system after visiting Roebling’s factory in Trenton, New Jersey, in August 1868. With an estimated cost of $40,000, including around $21,000 for Roebling’s steel components and wire cables, the suspension bridge was supposed to be less expensive than an iron structure. Shipping costs by steamer to Galveston, by rail to Millican and, finally, by ox wagons to Waco were a manageable $8,000. πood Roads for Texas 131 The problem was building materials. The quality of local stone...