PATRON + Imagine traveling on plank roads like this between cities in Alabama
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I remember going over planked bridges
My husbands grandad said ft Payne streets were naked and he saw them all burn. ???
I remember the wooden lanes that you drove on to cross bridges in Tallapoosa County, Alabama.
A great piece for Talladega County history buffs!
An elderly lady told me years ago about driving in Alabama during the 1930s. She owned a car and had a job as a traveling librarian. She said there was only one paved highway in Alabama during that time (can anyone verify?) so driving was slow. She also mentioned that when it rained she would spend a lot of time scraping the red mud/clay from underneath her car!
Co Rd 1 in Fairhope, AL still has the original wood under the asphalt! During heavy rains and hurricanes the wood swells causing the road to rise and fall all along the road.
There are plank bridges still being used in Conech County.
Be very hard to drive on today following some people; considering the way they drive!!
My grandfather told me years ago when he was a child his mother would send him looking for his father in Troy, AL. He told me the streets were made of planks and he remembered seeing the saloon doors like we see on westerns.
When i was young we could still see the supports and remnant of plank sidewalks in the Sipsy swamps near Fayette, Ala. They didn’t burn when the rest of the town did.
Highway 9 in Wetumpka was a part of the Central Plank Road. I remember old folks actually calling it Central Plank Road.
They are so cool but how did you pass someone if you were in a carriage?
I lived on central plank road for years, and when I started asking why it was called that, I was amazed when they told me, the things I learned when I was living in Wetumpka, they had great history.
Crossed many creeks on them. Remember all the dirt (not gravel) roads of Clay County.
Highway 216 going through Crisstown used to be a plank Road !
i like the truck
Where can I get the book Alabama pioneers
All books published by Alabama Pioneers can be purchased at amazon.com here: http://amzn.to/1KuvBPl
Interesting history, but what did they do if they met someone on this one lane road? Seems like it was poorly thought out and what a waste of natural resources. It took hundreds of years for the trees to grow only to be cut and laid on swampy ground where they would likely rot within a short period of time. This is part of the reason there are only a very small remnant of virgin timberland in Alabama and many valuable hardwoods that are now rare or extinct. It is unfortunate that these early settlers were not thinking of future generations.
No tree huggers back then.
Republicans for sure.
This is true. However, the forest in Alabama were so thick, they probably thought they’d last forever. Check out this 1887 drawing of what vintage forests must have looked like on this page….http://alabamapioneers.com/old-tavern-tuscaloosa-saved/#sthash.zDNcnRj4.dpbs
The ability of removing timber to mills would destroy much of the virgin forest. Countless numbers of short line narrow guage RR were built around the turn of the century enabling timber to be brought to the main RR line sawmills where it was cut and shipped. From the early 1900s to the 1920s we lost a large part of our virgin forest all across the south of pine, oak & cypress using this method.
.. Yet another person damning the dead by judging with modern sensibilities without understanding the people, culture or facts of the past.
I was just stating the facts, Michael Barnes. I don’t have the authority to damn anyone. As far as judging, if my generation receives no worse judgement than that, I will consider myself blessed.
Your indignance I think overshadowed your point.
Might have been more poignant to say simply “poor trees” instead of giving a progressive sermon on the ecological ignorance and selfishness of long dead people.
They would get off they road… most people that traveled the roads from what I understand were farmers traveling to get their goods to markets, most of the planks roads were made for or the use of that for the roads were do bad cause of the wagons made such deeps ruts in the roads most farmers lost most of their products or wagons got tore up and the new cars could not handle the deep ruts on the roads so they made the plank roads.
I use to live off of Central Plank Rd which is now Hwy 9 in Wetumpka. it was a very long road.
I believe I saw a historical marker with that info. once. Thanks for the update.
I once helped the AU Archeology Department do a test dig at the site of the Indian casino in Wetumpka. We found old nails space about a foot apart and spaced 3-4 foot across. It was determined this was the remnants of the old plank road that ran along the ridge beside the river. The nails fastened planks to logs. The wood all rotted away leaving only the nails. It was neat.
Wasn’t 119 a plank rd?
thanks
More like red, muddy dirt.
Looks lovely like a flat wooden roller coaster!!!
‘Cordero ‘ roads were around first. They used logs to make roads. Bumpy!!!
I remember a bridge with planks when I was a young kid.
Our dad would have us walk behind as he drove the car across. It was near Petrey , Alabama.
I did no that.
How did you pass when you met someone?
I did not know this. Very interesting.
Tallassee Cruisers
I remember going over bridges in south Al. That were almost like this!
They didn’t invent cars until after railroads were all over the country?
My mom told me about wooden roads crossing g the desert. Single lane. With pull offs every so often, in case you met a car coming from the other direction
I love this site…
I have never heard or read about these!
I’ve seen roads around AL named —Plank Road and always wondered about the history. Amazing how the settlers used their ingenuity to build roads over swamps with hard wood trees when there was no cement, asphalt, or even gravel for roads. They persevered… It was that kind of fortitude that makes Alabama such a great state!
I didn’t know thst
That was a “cool” article!! I do not remember seeing these roads, and I’m a senior from Alabama. I cannot tell you, Donna, how much I enjoy this site. It keeps me connected to the state I spent the first twelve years of my life in…and the state I dearly love.
While visiting Talladega County a few months ago (where I grew up in the 1960s), I was surprised to see the Winterboro Station had recently been moved to the other side of highway 21. I inquired why and found that it was necessary because the highway is planned for widening. I guess that after almost 200 years the traffic is finally picking up on that route.
I never knew such a thing as a plank road existed, this was so interesting.
Thanks for sharing pictures. I remember my grandparents talking about them and all males were required to work on them. It is great to put a picture to the words.
I’m glad you enjoyed the story. Happy New Year!
There’s a Central Plank Road in Eclectic. I guess it was a plank road in those days.
What would happen if you met someone going in the opposite direction?
We had some in California as well. Some remnants can be seen in desert palms area. I believe Huell Howser shared about that in one of his programs about California landmarks.
Sure looks smoother than 21.
There was a plank road in Coosa county . Went through my parents land off highway 280 on to Wetumpka I think.
[…] seriously, who thought this would hold up? Apparently Governor Collier believed that the roads would be a good alternative to the railroad and would even compete with them. We […]
Probably stolen for use on one’s own land. “Look what I found, a whole house JUST laying there already hewn!”
Love it. Definitely make you keep you eyes on the road.
Larry Lee & Rebecca Lancaster Lee
Tom libertarian paradise
Kurt Penney
Also log roads where small logs were laid side by side in muddy stretches of dirt roads.
The plank road pictured was in Alaska.
Log roads were common during the Civil War and were called corduroy roads.
There was a corduroy road from my mother’s home to her grandmother’s place. And had an infamous “bottoms” with mud from a small stream. One trip in their open Packard, even the yellow canary was brown.
That’s easier to imagine than to imagine driving on a smooth paved road.
AL 9 above Wetumpka has, or once had signage saying it was known as the Old Plank Rd.
Actually, thinking back years ago when last there, I think it was called the Central Plank Road
On way, no passing.
It takes a steady hand to hold that load bee-hind…
thank God cellphones wasn’t around, there’s no way you could text and drive on that
Long before cars, horses pulled wagons and carriages on the roads.
In the 70s I built board roads in the Louisiana marsh so heavy trucks could get to oil wells
Imagine someone texting while driving on such a road.
John Livingston
Bruce Russell
Melanie Stickler Falconer
Amazing, I had never heard of plank roads. Interestingly, my grandmother was from Sylacauga, so her family may have traveled the plank road in that area.
To bad if you meet someone coming the other way.
Sure did Verbena had one to the only thing left though is the old bridge
Reckon what you did when you met another traveler going in the opposite direction
Never knew this
Think Duke’s of Hazzard!
AL 9 running out of Wetumpka has, or had a sign saying Old Central Planning Road or similar wording. Been years since I’ve traveled it.
I don’t think they looked like that one in the photo.
I have no doubt there were plank roads .
Muddy wet marshy areas where they just laid boards down in the ruts to keep from getting stuck.
I live in Santuck, Al on Al route 9 which was not only Central Plank Road but was at one time a toll road. It was also a stagecoach route and most of the communities are 3 miles apart. They watered the horses every 3 miles and changed horses every 6 miles. I can still remember the 6 mile house when I was a kid. When l was fire chief around ‘74 it burned. The route also followed most river divides. The water in front of my house goes to the Coosa and the water behind my house goes to the Tallapoosa River.
Read the Old Federal Road.