BUREAU OF PUBLIC ROADS. 465 



nearly two and a half million more. Other large payments were 

 made to Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, each of which received 

 from four to five million dollars or more dm'ing the year. 



Something of the magnitude of the task that is being accomplished 

 is in these sio;nificant totals. The mere size of the job and the celerity 

 with which it has been carried forward are made clear in fullness of 

 detail in the statistical tables which are printed on other pages. 



THE VALUE OF THE ROADS. 



But merely to say that this year has added 10,000 miles to the 

 previously existing mileage conveys no adequate sense of the far- 

 reaching effects of the work that is being done. The 10,000 miles 

 completed represent something more than the equivalent of three 

 transcontinental roads. They are not transcontinental roads. They 

 are not even connected roads, though- as the work continues they will 

 be connected; but each separate project is to some community a new 

 opportunity, a means of bettering, in some respects, the economic and 

 social status of the community, and together they form the links 

 which, eventually united, will constitute a new means of transporta- 

 tion, no less important to the country as a whole than that offered 

 by the railroads. 



What they mean to the localities in which they are constructed can 

 only be told, by example. For example, then, there is the Federal- 

 aid road from Helena in Arkansas to Old Town, 17 miles away on 

 the Mississippi. WTien, last spring, the river rose and threatened to 

 spread over tne whole of that low country in Arkansas in a destructive 

 flood, word came to Helena that the levee at Old Town was about to 

 break. The situation was critical. A few hours' delay and thousands 

 of acres of rich farming land would be flooded. Helena was the only 

 source of aid and many men with tools and material were needed. 

 Every available motor vehicle was pressed into service and over 600 

 men, equipped for the work ahead were in a short time speeding over 

 the new road to the levee. They arrived in the nick of time and by 

 almost superhuman efforts dammed back the rising waters. There 

 is no question in the minds of the people of Old Town and Helena 

 about the value of their new Federal-aid road. They are sure that if 

 they had been dependent upon the old road the help so desperately 

 needed could not have reached the levee in time. 



Out in Arizona there is another road that is drawing near to 

 completion. It will connect Superior and Miami, two of the largest 

 and most important towns in the copper country. By the old road 

 the distance between them is a full hundred miles. The new road, 

 tunneled in places through solid rock, will shorten the distance by 

 80 miles. 



In Alabama the plans have been drawn for a new Federal-aid 

 project between Ariton and Clayton. The old road between these 

 towns, which are 25 miles apart, crosses the railroad 14 times in that 

 distance. By a piece of excellent engineering 13 of these crossings 

 have been eliminated, and the one remaining is not dangerous. 



In Maryland there was one particular curve on the road from 

 Baltimore to Washington so deadly that it was known throughout 

 the State as" Dead Man's Curve.'' It was what is known as a 

 reverse curve, there was a heavy grade, and high banks obscured 



