HISTORY ON THE ROAD CLEVELAND’S HESSLER COURT By Dianne Timblin hen you Millennia later and half a world away, turn the wood roads appeared in colonial North Wcorner onto America. Corduroy roads, named for the Hessler Court, just off cotton cloth because of its similarly ridged the Case Western appearance, provided a means of crossing Reserve University particularly muddy or swampy areas.2 In campus, the first thing a few cases, the swampy ground itself has you notice is the allowed vestiges of these roads to remain sound. Or more accu- in place for examination centuries later. In rately, the lack of it, especially when you April 2008, for example, the remains of a turn onto Hessler Court from Hessler corduroy-style log road dating to 1684 Road, the brick-paved street that runs per- were uncovered in Annapolis, Maryland.3 pendicular to it. Over the decades, the brick Canadians were first to experiment with street has buckled and cracked, and using sawed plank surfaces and in the although the brickwork remains pic- 1830s became the first North Americans turesque, the ride is bumpy and loud. to begin systematically installing plank Hessler Court, however, the last remain- roads. Residents of Onondaga County, ing wood block road in Cleveland, remains New York, liked what they saw their smooth and quiet, serving as a reminder neighbors doing and in the 1840s followed of one reason wood block paving became suit with their own.4 Planking helped a popular option on urban streets in the make rural American roads more pass- latter half of the nineteenth century. This able, particularly in wet weather, but ulti- block-long wood-paved road is typical for mately proved costly, since the planks its time—in location, appearance, and typically had to be replaced every four to paving style in particular—falling into a five years rather than the eight to ten years long tradition of wood paving that dates investors originally expected. Rural resi- COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR at least as far back as the second century dents resisted paying taxes for road con- Owing to the neoclassical and bungalow B.C.E. struction and maintenance, and even with character of the homes on Hessler Road The earliest known remains of a wood tolls it was difficult for investors to see a and the wood block paving on Hessler road were excavated at Corlea Bog in return on their money.5 Court, neighborhood residents persuaded County Longford, Ireland. Uncovered by Passability was also a major concern the City of Cleveland to designate the area archaeologist Barry Raftery in the 1980s, for city dwellers. Wood roads such as as a historic district in 1975, the first such the wood road spanned the bog, con- Cleveland’s Hessler Court became an designation in the city. necting two points of high ground, and urban staple, first in the form of planking dates to 148 B.C.E. The construction relied and later in two distinct stages of wood primarily on halved oak trunks laid out as block construction. Stone block pavements doned after 1856 or 1857.”6 Planking as a paired parallel “runners” across which were more common overall but expensive paving practice continued longer in north- “sleepers,” like railroad ties, were laid per- to build and proved noisy in an era of iron ern Wisconsin and Michigan as well as in pendicularly, the timbers joined with pegs horseshoes and steel-rimmed carriage and New England and the Pacific Northwest, and mortises. The sleepers are spaced wagon wheels. Several U.S. cities, includ- where the availability of lumber made it closely together, and the flat surfaces of ing Cleveland, began experimenting with viable for several more decades.7 the logs typically face up. Without the plank roads. But those roads typically did In Boston, Samuel Nicholson built a wood road, the bog would have been not live up to the seven years of durabil- road using his patented wood block pavers impassable for many months of the year. ity that had been predicted for pine or the in 1866. The pine was soaked in creosote Evidence of another, apparently Bronze ten to twelve expected for oak. In fact, one and cut into blocks three to four inches Age trackway beneath the one excavated historian found that “many plank pave- wide, six to fourteen inches long, and six by Raftery further implies the road’s value. ments disintegrated in two years. No new inches deep. Nicholson’s techniques were The bog itself is responsible for preserv- plank roads were started after 1854 in quickly imitated by competitors, and the ing the evidence of both roads, since the Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, or Iowa, use of wood block paving took hold in peat served to embalm the timbers.1 and most of the existing roads were aban- northern U.S. cities such as New York, FOREST HISTORY TODAY | SPRING 2008 51 they soon decayed, while the pavement sank into ruts and holes.”9 Further dam- aging the reputation of Nicholson’s tech- nique was the prevailing view that the pavement contributed to the spread of the 1871 Chicago fire; the highly flammable streets, constructed as they were with cre- osote-soaked wood, served as an acceler- ant instead of a firebreak.10 Hessler Court Hessler House Despite the problems, wood block paving remained appealing for its quiet- ness and affordability, and municipal exper- iments with it continued from the 1880s into the early 1900s. Eventually, wood block pavers injected—not just soaked— with creosote came into favor. Paving with these blocks began as early as 1873, when a road built with creosoted southern pine was constructed in Galveston, Texas. The U.S. Forest Service reported in 1908 that “the success of the modern wood block pavement” had several causes: “The wood is carefully selected, both as to kind and COURTESY OF CLEVELAND PUBLIC LIBRARY IMAGE COLLECTIONS quality; it is cut accurately into rectangu- The Hessler House sits at the north corner of Hessler Road and Hessler Court, the last lar blocks, is put through seasoning remaining wood block paved street in the city. The two roads first appeared on maps in 1908; processes, and is preserved from decay, this map is from 1914, the same year that Emery Hessler completed purchasing land along with creosote” to reduce water absorption Hessler Court. Subsequently, Hessler Road was extended past his house, which was relocated and “consequent expansion and contrac- from Bellflower Road in 1916. tion of the pavement.” When the blocks were laid tightly, with the grain vertical, over a solid foundation of cement-con- Newark, Detroit, and—once again— weather. The blocks also rotted rapidly, crete, the joints were waterproof and Cleveland. The abundance of timber with a normal maximum use of six years maintenance became relatively easy.11 made wood block paving an affordable and a reported life of only two years in Hessler Court was platted toward the end option, and thus popular. Washington, D.C.”8 Multiple factors con- of this latter phase of wood block paving Like wood plank paving, however, tributed to the pavement’s failure rate. The and may represent the very last portion of Nicholson pavement failed to live up to its wood was generally not selected with three waves of wood paving in Cleveland. early promise, and in the 1870s it was care, with soft woods like white pine often Making roadways reliably passable was abandoned, for several reasons. Nicholson used. The wide joints allowed water to clearly a high priority in the Forest City. blocks were “slippery when wet or fouled seep in and be absorbed by the blocks, The city council authorized street plank- by mud from unpaved streets, and they with the result that the blocks would swell ing to begin in 1840—before sewers were offered poor traction on steep grades. The and heave. Compounding these problems, dug (1853), reservoirs were established wood absorbed horse urine and excre- “the foundation was usually of untreated (1846), or gas lines were run (1849).12 The ment and sweated putrid fluid in hot planks, laid directly upon earth, so that city started planking the streets four to five U.S. FOREST SERVICE PHOTO, FOREST HISTORY SOCIETY PHOTO COLLECTION Samuel Nicholson’s patented paving technique quickly fell out of favor because he spaced the blocks too far apart and because “the foundation was usually of untreated planks, laid directly upon earth, so that they soon decayed, while the pavement sank into ruts and holes.” This cross section shows the plan used by the Hale Pavement Company of Staunton, Virginia, in the 1880s. 52 FOREST HISTORY TODAY | SPRING 2008 accompanied it, had a direct impact on the neighborhood where Hessler Court is located. As the city grew eastward, Euclid Avenue, situated one city block southeast of Hessler Road, became known after 1889 as “the showcase of America.” Wade Park, adjacent to Euclid, was the first large park in the city.15 Hessler Court, therefore, was positioned in a fashionable neighborhood, where the aesthetics and sound quality of the road might have been given greater consideration. Hessler Court’s wood blocks can, in fact, tell us something about the nature of the neighborhood at the time of its paving. The same is true of Hessler Road COURTESY OF CHRIS M. WORRELL COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR and its light-duty brick paving. Thorough- fares with heavy traffic called for granite Looking northwest up Hessler Court while standing on Hessler Road. The house at right is the blocks, heavy bricks, or iron or steel Hessler House (see inset), which fronts onto Hessler Road.