# When did paved asphalt roads become commonplace? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 31, 2018, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-paved-asphalt-roads-become-commonplace/823794 "2018-10-31T18:23:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2018, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-paved-asphalt-roads-become-commonplace/823794/41 "2018-11-02T12:31:38Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > And now I know why 8 Mile is called Base Line Rd. in the western suburbs. And why Meridian Twp is called Meridian Twp. But also, it’s kind of neat how the townships fill in a county, and how the counties are aligned. Other than Detroit which road alignment predates the PLSS, it’s almost a sure thing that non-grid-aligned roads are old Indian trails. Moravian comes to mind, and of course Pontiac Trail. Of course the Mile roads and the meridian roads (Kelly, Garfield, Hayes through Beck, Wixom, Napier) are on the grid, too. It’s why farmland is 20/40/80/160 acres, and why a subdivision is called a subdivision. It’s a pretty cool system. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2018, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-paved-asphalt-roads-become-commonplace/823794/42 "2018-11-02T15:38:39Z")
When I lived in Valparaiso IN, Lincoln Hwy ran right through the middle of town. I recall a monument to the portion of it that was paved as an “ideal section”, completed in the 1920s. [Here’s](https://www.in.gov/history/markers/181.htm) a pic of a monument in a neighboring town. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2018, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-paved-asphalt-roads-become-commonplace/823794/43 "2018-11-02T15:46:45Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > And why Meridian Twp is called Meridian Twp. But also, it’s kind of neat how the townships fill in a county, and how the counties are aligned. > … > It’s a pretty cool system. If I’m ever in the area, I’d love to make a trip to see [the beginning point!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beginning_Point_of_the_U.S._Public_Land_Survey) Just to see where it all began. Love the idea of these surveyors hauling their chains across the wilderness! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2018, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-paved-asphalt-roads-become-commonplace/823794/44 "2018-11-02T19:51:25Z")
> [@Mr\_Downtown](#): > > I find that people make _ **way** _ too much of this historic coincidence. > > As Earl Swift notes in _The Big Roads,_ p. 157: “When Dwight Eisenhower took office in January 1953, the Interstate Highway System had officially existed for more than eight years…He entered the Oval Office professing an interest in building ‘a network of modern roads’… He didn’t know that the executive and legislative branches had already worked out the details of the network he sought.” > > The other major players—Thomas MacDonald of the Bureau of Public Roads, Sen. Albert Gore, Rep. Hale Boggs, even FDR—were far more important than Ike. > > Modern readers love to elide from Eisenhower’s 1919 convoy to his viewing of German _autobahnen_ to the last-minute insertion of “and Defense Highways” into the congressional bill title to the blue signs that went up in 1991, making it a simple “great man” story. In between, of course, were the parkways of New York and Washington, the urban superhighways of Detroit and Chicago, the Pennsylvania Turnpike—and the congressional funding fights of the 1950s in which the Eisenhower Administration was notably clumsy and clueless and played no role other than signing the finished bill. I may have to bookmark this. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Mdcastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@Mdcastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mdcastle)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2018, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-paved-asphalt-roads-become-commonplace/823794/45 "2018-11-02T22:08:48Z")
The mid 1920s is when you started to be able to travel substantial distances on concrete, and by the early 1930s or so where it was rare to have to travel on gravel between major cities. Asphalt was about that time and was originally a thin layer over gravel and was considered an improvement over gravel, but not in the same league as concrete. The Minnesota highway maps of the day used to distinguish between asphalt roads and concrete roads. Eventually the symbols morphed into a more vague “high type” and “intermediate type” and persisted up to the 1990 edition. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2018, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-paved-asphalt-roads-become-commonplace/823794/46 "2018-11-02T22:43:09Z")
There were still a few sections of roads in Little Rock with gravel over a hard surface in 1980. I don’t think it was dirt. I lived near the intersection of 36th street and Shackleford Rd. That section of Shackleford was gravel for about three miles then it switched to asphalt. That’s a trendy area now packed with shopping centers and heavy traffic. I remember a few other similar areas of road that were primarily asphalt but switched to gravel in undeveloped areas of the city. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2018, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-paved-asphalt-roads-become-commonplace/823794/47 "2018-11-04T22:47:57Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > If I’m ever in the area, I’d love to make a trip to see [the beginning point!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beginning_Point_of_the_U.S._Public_Land_Survey) Just to see where it all began. Love the idea of these surveyors hauling their chains across the wilderness! 😃 That’s on my pilgrimage list, well, as much as I can be a pilgrim as long as I’m in the area and it’s convenient. ---
**Author:** ![svd678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@svd678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/svd678)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2018, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-paved-asphalt-roads-become-commonplace/823794/48 "2018-11-05T05:01:31Z")
Note that in some places a dirt road and a gravel one are both called dirt; in other places the difference is significant. The gravel they use in Kansas is much softer than the shale gravel in NY. I’ve heard it claimed that a paved road is cheaper to maintain than gravel, which needs to be replaced and graded frequently. I was told that a rancher in western Nebraska paid for the US highway across his ranch to be paved so he could get around on his own land. This was after WWII. A contractor I once worked for said that asphalt cost one-third the cost of concrete, and lasted one-third as long. He was talking driveways. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2018, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-paved-asphalt-roads-become-commonplace/823794/49 "2018-11-06T04:58:22Z")
At least for heavily trafficked highways, the battle between asphalt and concrete continues. Studies simply don’t seem to offer a clear conclusion about which is the better long-term choice. Concrete paving was traditionally seen as the more durable choice, but the New Jersey Turnpike was entirely asphalt—and that lasted more than 50 years with little deterioration. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2018, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-paved-asphalt-roads-become-commonplace/823794/50 "2018-11-06T14:25:16Z")
The surface layer gets the attention, being visible, but the quality of road greatly depends on the roadbed. That’s what supports the surface and protects against undercutting, subsistence, and heave. We’ve all seen concrete sidewalks destroyed because of a poor bed, the same happens to roads. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-paved-asphalt-roads-become-commonplace/823794.md?page=2)