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"Get a Horse!" was the half-serious jest for residents of Matagorda County in the early 1920's, when the motor car was fast becoming the most sought-after means of transportation. The stylish comfort and prestige of Henry Ford's "Tin-Lizzy" was seriously challenged by the practical needs of transversing roads that were often sticky, rutted, black "gumbo." The surface of Matagorda County is a level plain that rises from sea level on the coast to a maximum elevation of 70 feet at the north boundary. The Colorado River, Caney, Live Oak, Carancahua, and Tres Palacios creeks cross the county, but adequate drainage has always been a problem. The general land slope is approximately three feet per mile in a south- southeast direction toward the coast, causing a real problem in an average rainfall of 40.58 inches a year and serious troubles in excessive rainfall years. Sheer desperation drove the residents of the county to vote a $3 million bond issue in 1927 to improve their transportation situation. The county was far from wealthy and depended on its rice, cattle, and other farm products for financial security. The sulphur mining at Gulf was the main industry in the county, and no one attached much value to the mineral rights on his land. Good, rich farm land, complete with mineral rights, could be bought for $25 to $35 an acre. As it turned out, the next few years were to see rich oil and gas fields developed in the county and mineral rights jealously retained by the land-seller and his heirs. Provided for in the bond money was a total of seventy-eight miles of nine-foot-wide concrete paving, poured in continuous slabs on four locations in the county. Each would be built on a royally wide 80-foot right-of-way and would be paralleled by an 8-foot-wide shell shoulder. It was expected that eventually the State Highway Department would include the roads in their programs and build them up to state specifications. At this time the Texas State Highway Department was building, State Highway 71, State Highway 35, and State Highway 60. They were being constructed on 18-foot-wide pavement with no shoulders, in accordance with design standards of the time, according to a local highway department spokesman. One of the original roads is still maintained by the county between Collegeport and Citrus Grove. After viewing this road, it is easy to see how early car passengers would consider driving on the 9-foot pavement as rare, exciting sport. As Mrs. William D. Bennett remembers it from childhood in the early '30's, "When you had the right-of-way on the concrete, and you met a car coming from the other direction, he would come straight at you at high speed. Of course, he would always pull back onto the shell shoulder, but it was exciting to guess just when. It was always at the last possible moment!” In November of 1928, the first paving was begun two miles west of Cedar Lane. When the southeast stretch was completed to Sargent, the work was resumed again two miles north of Cedar Lane and moved northeast to the limits of Bay City. The second of the four roads also was built on the east side of the county. This one was built as a spur from Sugar Valley to Pledger. It connected into State Highway 35 at the bend known locally today as "Lemaster's Corner," or Sugar Valley. The third road provided by the bond issue was to connect Collegeport with El Maton. Collegeport had been optimistically promoted by land developers as a potential college town surrounded by highly profitable orange groves. Winter freezes had quickly ended the dream and the area remained a sleepy farming community. All three of these roads were built by R. W. Briggs Construction Company, using plans and specifications developed by James Gartrell, county engineer; E. N. Gustafson, county surveyor; and his assistant, John F. Rother. Because of the continuous paving method used, maintenance crews were kept busy filling transverse cracks with asphalt as the pavement broke. No one disputes the permanency and quality of the roads as they can still be distinguished under the concrete overlays of the roads later developed on them by the State Highway Department.
From a modest but ambitious beginning, the roads supervised by "Mr. Gus" have become major arteries for today's high speed road-runners. The Bay City to Sargent road is now FM 457; the Sugar Valley to Pledger spur is now FM 1728, the El Maton to Collegeport section is now FM 1095, and the Markham to Clemville route is known more familiarly now as FM 1468. With the exception of Gustafson, who became the first State Highway Department resident engineer and later moved on to higher posts in the state organization, all of the key planners of Matagorda County's nine-foot pavement remained to make Bay City their home. John Rother became county surveyor, to be followed by his son James after John's death. Historic Matagorda County, Volume I, pages 251-252 |