Plank Road - Burlington to Mt. Pleasant, 1853

JOBE, GUELICH, GRIMES, WIGHTMAN

Posted By: Pat Ryan White (email)
Date: 7/31/2015 at 20:55:00

HISTORY OF THE PLANK ROAD: BURLINGTON – MT. PLEASANT.

Many references have been made in years past of the old Plank Road which was built between Burlington and Mt Pleasant, just before the railroad was extended west of the Mississippi and across Iowa, but the best article we have read on that important and first effort to get out of the mud, appeared recently in the “Burlington Hawkeye Gazette,” and part of which relating particularly to the Henry county end of the famous all-weather road appears further on in these notes.

Between 1849 and 1853 the Iowa legislature authorized a number of plank roads, but only three were actually built. The longest, best constructed and longest operated of the three was the 28 mile plank road between Burlington and Mt. Pleasant. Another was built from Burlington northward.

The Burlington and Mt. Pleasant Plank road very closely followed present Federal Highway 34 the entire distance, and later the railroad paralleled the plank road, and of course putting it out of business. The western terminal of the old plank road was on East Washington at about Asylum Avenue. Here was built to provide for the travelling public, a hostel called the Washington hotel, more familiarly known as Jobe’s Hotel, and by some it was called “The Last Chance.” The hotel was a solidly built structure of brick and stone, three story and a perfect rectangle without a break in its severe architecture, the accepted type of the era.

With the plank road going out of business and the passenger station of the new railroad being located over a mile to the west, and other hotels coming into competition, Jobe’s Hotel suspended and later passed into other hands and then became the first unit of what is known as The Mt. Pleasant Female Seminary.

The old hotel was overhauled and made to meet the requirements of a school building. With the growth of the school, and the steadily increasing enrollment of young women, an addition to the west was built on the same ground as the first, but of four stories. The upper floors served as a dormitory for the resident students, while the lower floors were used for class rooms.

And here was the terminal of the first all-weather highway to be built in Iowa. Whether it was the first west of the river we cannot say, but all the literature we have examined gives no mention of others. The following is from the Burlington paper:
PLANK ROADS HERE IN 50S
[Burlington Hawkeye Gazette]
Thoroughly fed up with trying to travel in the mud, some citizens set about building the first all-weather road in Des Moines County in 1849 and ’50.

The plank road urge took form as the Burlington Hawk-eye of Jan. 25, 1849 reported “the citizens of Burlington have appointed about 40 delegates to attend the mass plank road convention on Friday next at New London.”

At this meeting held in the church at New London, the report of the committee on statistics produced an article from a Mr. Guelich of Utica, N.Y., declaring the plank road the “most effectual at the lowest cost” and that “on a broken stone or macadam road a horse can draw 4 times as much, and on a smooth plank road 8 times as much, or twice as much as on a good macadam.”

By action of this meeting Alfred Hebard was appointed to survey a right of way, ad committees were appointed to secure property and subscription of stock.

COMPANY FORMED.
The Burlington and Mt. Pleasant Plank Road Company was organized and the road duly commenced. The State Gazette of Sept. 4, 1850 said: “The Mt. Pleasant Plank road is well worth a visit and a ride upon, some 3 miles of it being completed and a toll gate being established where 5 [8?] cents is charged for wagons but nothing for horsemen. A few miles farther will bring it to the present Mt. Pleasant road, where a revenue worth talking about will be collected.”

According to the newspapers, in spite of a great deal of urging, the people at large seemed slow to respond to the subscription drive. The county and the city of Burlington were induced to take up stock, even to levy additional taxes for the purpose. On Nov. 28, 1850, the following report was made:

“The regular semi-annual meeting of the stock holders of the Burlington and Mt. Peasant Plank Road company was held in this city on Tuesday last. J.W. Grimes, Esq. president, in the chair.

“It will be gratifying to all to learn that the completion of the road by June next is a fixed fact. The figures which insure this gratifying result are as follows: Whole distance planked and ready for travel, 9 miles; amount receipts from only gate yet established Oct. 1 to Nov. 23 - $125.45.”

SHUNNED IN GOOD WEATHER.
Operation of the road proved quite successful during the bad weather, but in good weather the traffic wended its way forth over the old road alongside the planked route. To remedy this situation, petitions were gotten up among some of the citizens to vacate the regular roads where they paralleled the Plank Road projects. The Road Record of Des Moines County had the following:

“Dec. 18 – On this day came Henry Ritner, commissioner, heretofore appointed to make view of and report upon the expediency of vacating so much of the Mt. Pleasant and Burlington, and Agency roads as run parallel with the Burlington and Mt. Pleasant Plank road, and therefore said report is filed and set down for hearing on the first Monday in March next.”

The hearing was postponed until March 8, and the petition was rejected as a remonstrance had been filed against it.

It seems the plank road wasn’t kept up so well, however, and the Daily Telegraph of Jan. 8, 1853, carried a “Plank Road notice”:

“Notice is hereby given that a meeting of the stockholders in the road will be held at the council chambers in Burlington at 2 P.M., on Monday, Feb. 8, when a proposition will be submitted to them to take up the plank on said road, sell off the same and the toll houses, and cancel the articles of incorporation.”

FIX TOLLS.
At the meeting, however, the directors were empowered to enter into agreement with the court judge of Des Moines and Henry counties to make a “binding and permanent contract for upkeep.” Then, according to the County Court record:

“Feb. 21, 1853. Present O.C. Wightman, county judge. On this day came in for hearing the petition of the Burlington & Mt. Pleasant Plank Road Company for a license to charge tolls upon the Plank Road now completed from Burlington in this county to Mt. Pleasant in Henry County; and the court being fully satisfied that said road is now in a good and safe traveling condition, and said company having filed security to the satisfaction of the court conditions for the keeping up and proper attending to said road, it is hereby ordered that said Plank Road Company be and they are hereby authorized to charge and collect the following rates of toll upon said Plank Road, to-wit, not to exceed:

“For 4-horse vehicle, 3 cents per mile; 3-horse vehicle, 2 ½ cents; 2-horse vehicle, 2 cents; a horseman, 1 ½ cents; 2-ox vehicle, 2 cents; 4-ox vehicle, 3 cents; and for each additional yoke to same vehicle 1 ½ cents; each head of loose cattle, horses or mules, ½ cent; each head of hogs or sheep, ¼ cent.

“And whereas said plank road is of such character as to admit of its being used as an ordinary highway, thereby rendering as much of the public high way as runs and lies immediately adjoining said plank road unnecessary it is therefore hereby ordered that the same be discontinued provided such highways in Henry County are also discontinued and it is ordered that the license to charge tolls upon said Plank Road shall run for a term of 15 years from the first day of January, A.D. 1853.”

The last 2 entries in the record of receipts for the road was of $452.12 toll from Jan. 21 to Feb. 10, 1854, and an order for $7 for work done on the road. Another entry shows an order for $30; $5 for labor done and $25 for salary up to April 25, 1854, for keeping toll gate on B. & Mt. P. Plank Road.”

The railroad fever which had taken full hold by this time, however, seemed to have knocked the plank road-consciousness out of the people and the road deteriorated into non-use. Some old-timers say the timbers were used by the farmers along the route to build fences, building, etc.

[“The Bystander’s Notes,” C.S. Rogers, Editor, Mt. Pleasant News, Saturday, November 2, 1946]