A plank road is a

road A road is a thoroughfare used primarily for movement of traffic. Roads differ from streets, whose primary use is local access. They also differ from stroads, which combine the features of streets and roads. Most modern roads are paved. Th ...

composed of wooden planks or puncheon logs, as an efficient technology for traversing soft, marshy, or otherwise difficult ground. Plank roads have been built since antiquity, and were commonly found in the Canadian province of

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

as well as the

Northeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A '' compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—eac ...

and

Midwest The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...

of the United States in the first half of the 19th century. They were often built by turnpike companies.

Origins

The Wittmoor bog trackway is the name given to each of two historic plank roads or

boardwalk A boardwalk (alternatively board walk, boarded path, or promenade) is an elevated footpath, walkway, or causeway typically built with wooden planks, which functions as a type of low water bridge or small viaduct that enables pedestrians to ...

s, trackway No. I being discovered in 1898 and trackway No. II in 1904 in the ''Wittmoor''

bog A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and musk ...

in northern

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

, Germany. The trackways date to the 4th and 7th century AD, both linked the eastern and western shores of the formerly inaccessible, swampy bog. A part of the older trackway No. II dating to the period of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

is on display at the permanent exhibition of the Archaeological Museum Hamburg in

Harburg, Hamburg Harburg is a borough of the city of Hamburg, Germany. It is also the name of Harburg quarter in the borough, which used to be the capital of the Harburg district in Lower Saxony. The borough of Harburg lies on the southern banks of the river Elb ...

. This type of plank road is known to have been used as early as 4,000 BC with, for example, the

Post Track The Post Track is an ancient causeway in the valley of the River Brue on the Somerset Levels, England. It dates from around 3838 BCE, making it some 30 years older than the Sweet Track in the same area. Various sections have been scheduled ...

found in the

Somerset levels The Somerset Levels are a coastal plain and wetland area of Somerset, England, running south from the Mendips to the Blackdown Hills. The Somerset Levels have an area of about and are bisected by the Polden Hills; the areas to the south ...

near

Glastonbury Glastonbury ( , ) is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low-lying Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town had a population of 8,932 in the 2011 census. Glastonbury is less than across the River ...

, England. This type of road was also constructed in

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

times.

In North America

From the mid-1840s and to mid 1850s, the United States experienced the Plank Road Boom and a subsequent bust. The first plank road in the US was built in North Syracuse, New York, to transport salt and other goods; it appears to have copied earlier roads in Canada, which had copied Russian ones. The plank road boom, like many other early technologies, promised to transform the way people lived and worked and led to permissive changes in legislation seeking to spur development, speculative investment by private individuals, etc. Ultimately, the technology failed to live up to its promise, and millions of dollars in investments evaporated almost overnight. Three plank roads, the Hackensack, the Paterson, and the Newark, were major arteries in northern

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

. The roads travelled over the

New Jersey Meadowlands New Jersey Meadowlands, also known as the Hackensack Meadowlands after the Hackensack River, primary river flowing through it, is a general name for a large ecosystem of wetlands in northeastern New Jersey in the United States, a few miles to th ...

, connecting the cities for which they were named to the

Hudson River The Hudson River, historically the North River, is a river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York (state), New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake (New York), Henderson Lake in the ...

waterfront. U.S. Route 1 in Virginia follows the Boydton Plank Road from Petersburg southwards to just north of the North Carolina line. On the U.S. West Coast the Canyon Road of

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

was another important but short artery and was built between 1851 and 1856. Kingston Road (Toronto) (Governor's Road) and Danforth Avenue, in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

, were plank roads built by the Don and Danforth Plank Road Company in the late 18th and the early 19th centuries. Highway 2 from Toronto eastwards was a plank road in the 19th century that was later paved. In 1833 Scarborough-Markham Plank Road was authorized to build a road from Danforth Road to Highway 7 to Ringwood and east on Stouffville Road to Main Street Stouffville. Plank roads are used exclusively in the Canadian fishing outport of Harrington Harbour,

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

because the town is built directly over a hilly, rocky shore. ATVs are the only mode of transportation there.

In Australia

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

, plank roads were important in the early growth of the agricultural and outer urban areas because of the distances imposed by swamps and the relatively-infertile soil. As it cost £2,000/km to construct roads by conventional means, the local councils, known as road boards, were experimenting with cheaper approaches to road building. A method called Jandakot Corduroy had been developed at Jandakot south-east of Perth: a

jarrah ''Eucalyptus marginata'', commonly known as jarrah, in Noongar language and historically as Swan River mahogany, is a plant in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae and is endemic to the south-west of Western Australia. It is a tree with rough, fibro ...

tramway lay upon sleepers, bounded by two strips of jarrah planks for cart and carriage wheels. The gap was filled with limestone rubble to be used by horses. This reduced the cost of road building by up to 85% after its widespread introduction in 1908. However, increased traffic and suburban development rendered the routes unsatisfactory over time, and by the 1950s, they had been replaced with

bitumen Bitumen ( , ) is an immensely viscosity, viscous constituent of petroleum. Depending on its exact composition, it can be a sticky, black liquid or an apparently solid mass that behaves as a liquid over very large time scales. In American Engl ...

surfaced roads.

References

External links

*
The Plank Road Craze - Background Reading
*Longfellow, Rickie.
Back in Time: Plank Roads
. ''Highway History'',

Federal Highway Administration The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is a division of the United States Department of Transportation that specializes in highway transportation. The agency's major activities are grouped into two programs, the Federal-aid Highway Program a ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Plank road Types of roads Road infrastructure Footpaths

Origins

In North America

In Australia

See also

References

External links