Kennewick's Oiled Road Is Falling Apart—and the New Commissioner Will Inherit the Mess
A local correspondent warns that emergency warrants, neglected road districts, and a rut a foot deep will greet commissioner-elect R. E. Pratt.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The Kennewick city street committee, ably assisted by Jack Frost, has put Washington Street into very good shape. When Jack Frost quits the job, however, the committee will find there is still plenty of room for work.
Our famous oiled road, too, has been helped by Mr. Frost, though along the mile stretch between Bryson Brown's corner and Swayze's corner he has rather botched the job. Along this stretch there is a rut about a foot deep, and an auto or wagon once getting into the rut has to travel it to the end, for there is no other way to get out. We would suggest to Jim Clements that he might do us one good turn before he goes out of office, and that would be to construct half a dozen turnouts along this stretch of road.
Commissioner-elect R. E. Pratt has a job on his hands and we don't envy him a bit. For one thing, our present county commissioner has been working overtime trying to issue all the emergency warrants he could think of, and Pratt will get the blame when payday comes. And again, for years all the road money has been spent in one locality and there will be a terrible holler go up if he discontinues this practice. Discontinue it he must, for other localities have been neglected so long that they simply must have work done soon. Then there's our oiled road to contend with. Built with absolute disregard for specifications, it is not standing up under the traffic and in some places is almost impassable today for an auto or even a buggy. He will have to plan to keep this main thoroughfare in shape somehow, though we fear that it will be a hard and expensive job. One bit of advice we would like to offer is that when the road is repaired, it be given a coat of oil to hold up the repair work. Last spring the road was put into fine shape, but no oil was applied and the speeding autos soon scattered the gravel fills to the four winds, and the repair money was wasted. Better save the repair money until the work can be followed up with oil. This will help materially. But as we said, it will be a difficult task to maintain a good road out of what we have, and we are glad we don't have to do it.
“Built with absolute disregard for specifications, it is not standing up under the traffic and in some places is almost impassable today for an auto or even a buggy.”
The 1916 complaint about an oiled road built without specifications—and repaired without oil—could be lifted from a modern county budget hearing. Then as now, growth outran maintenance, emergency warrants pushed costs into the next administration, and road money concentrated in favored districts. The story is a reminder that infrastructure promises have a way of becoming the next official's problem.
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