Roadworking Equipment
The process of constructing or improving roads was often documented. By identifying the type of equipment being used, one can narrow down the era of an image.
During the late 19th and early 20th century, most roadworking equipment was horse-drawn. In the image below, an early roller (on the right), spreader (in the center), and crusher (on the left) can be seen. The equipment is very basic. The roller is a simple wheel pulled by the horse, and the spreader is a simple wooden horse-drawn cart.
Test Road in New Jersey: Image courtesy of Dan McNichol, The Roads that Built America, 2003.
Seen below are several pieces of equipment from the early 1910s. At this time, a lot of the equipment was still horse-drawn, such as the snow plow on the top left and the spreader on the top left. Many, however, were steam powered, such as the crusher on the bottom left and the roller on the bottom right.
1910s Roadworking Equipment: Images courtesy of American City, 1911.
Following are some other early pre-WWI types of roadworking equipment. The image on the top left illustrates a very primitive grading system that consisted of a man standing on logs pulled behind a car. The image on the top right illustrates an early 1900s tractor and grader, running on a primitive engine called a power unit. The images on the bottom illustrate some other steam powered rollers, separators, and graders.
Early 1900s Roadworking Equipment: Top images and bottom left and center images courtesy of Dan McNichol. Image on the right courtesy of the University of Vermont Landscape Change Program and UVM Special Collections.
Road building and improving was well underway during the 1930s. A number of large, more efficient and more powerful road working vehicles were used during these large, federally funded projects. In 1932, the "Hi-way Yellow" Caterpillar Inc. machines, seen below, were developed exclusively for the road improvement projects of the time.
1930s Caterpillar: Image courtesy of Dan McNichol.
1930s Roadworking Equipment: Images courtesy of the University of Vermont Landscape Change Program and UVM Special Collections.
1930s Roadworking Equipment: Images courtesy of the University of Vermont Landscape Change Program and UVM Special Collections.
The road working equipment used during the massive construction of the Interstate System in the 1950s and 1960s needed to be massive itself. Below are some examples.
Interstate Construction: Top images courtesy of Dan McNichol. Bottom image courtesy of the University of Vermont Landscape Change Program and the Vermont State Archives.
