OFFICE OF PUBLIC ROAD INQUIRIES. 309 



COOPERATION IN BUILDING OBJECT-LESSON ROADS. 



In additiou to making scientific tests of road-building materials, 

 the Office has, during the past year, cooperated with the local authori- 

 ties in many diffei-ent States in building short sections of object-lesson 

 roads, thus determining not only the best available materials for any 

 particular community, but also demonstrating their practical applica- 

 tion to the road. In this work it is intended not only to contribute 

 something by way of cooperation on the part of the General Gov- 

 ernment, but also to secure cooperation on the part of as many 

 different interests connected with the road question as j)0ssible. 

 The local community having the road built is most largely inter- 

 ested, and is expected to furnish the common labor and domestic 

 material. The railroad companies generally cooperate, because they 

 are interested in having better roads to and from railroad stations. 

 They therefore contribute by transporting free, or at very low 

 rates, the machinery and such foreign materials as are needed 

 in the construction of the road. The manufacturers of earth- 

 handling and road-building machinerj^ cooperate by furnishing all 

 needed machinery for the most economical construction of the road, 

 and in manj^ cases prison labor is used in preparing material which 

 finally goes into the comi^leted roadbed. The contribution which the 

 General Government makes in this scheme of cooperation is both 

 actually and relatively small, but it is by means of this limited 

 cooperation that it has been j^ossible to produce a large number of 

 object-lesson roads in different States. These have proven to be 

 very beneficial, not only in showing the scientific side of the question, 

 but the economical side as well. 



The work of building object-lesson roads, in cooperation with the 

 Illinois Central Railroad Company, through the Mississippi Valley 

 from New Orleans to Chicago, as outlined in the last annual report, 

 was continued into the present year, terminating July 26, 1901, in 

 the construction of object-lesson earth roads and the holding of a con- 

 vention at Effingham, 111. During the month of September, 1901, 

 another good-roads ti-ain, organized in Chicago and carrjdng all kinds 

 of modern road-building machinery, proceeded over the Lake Shore 

 and Michigan Southern Railroad to Buffalo, where the machinerj' was 

 used in the construction of samples of macadam and earth roads on 

 Grand Island, near Buffalo. The good-roads train was on exhibition 

 on the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition during the session of 

 the International Good Roads Congress. This was the first interna- 

 tional good roads congress ever held which was attended by European 

 delegates. It was attended by jjrominent statesmen and officials, road 

 experts, and engineers from various parts of this and other countries, 

 and the results, it is believed, will prove far-reaching in their benefits. 



This Office cooperated for a j^eriod of about five months during the 

 winter of 1901-1902 with the Southern Railway Company and the 

 National Good Roads Association in an expedition for building object- 

 lesson roads in the southeastern section of the country. The good- 

 roads train left Alexandria, Va., on October 29, 1901, and closed its 

 itinerary at Charlottesville, Va., on April 5, 1902. During the inter- 

 vening time it traveled over the Southern Railroad and its branches 

 through the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ten- 

 nessee, Georgia, and Alabama, a distance of 4,037 miles, stopjnng at 

 eighteen different places and building as many object-lesson roads. 

 The following places were visited, where conventions were also held: 



