The War on Narrow Wagon Wheels

The King county members of the legislature met the Seattle Chamber of Commerce December 28 for the purpose of conferring about matters of a character desirable to present at the coming session of the legislature.

Mr. Thomas W. Prosch presented the question of wide vs. narrow wagon tires in the manner following, concluding his address with the submission of the California wagon tire law, with the substitution of Washington for California in the copy, Senator John Wooding receiving it and promising to introduce it and do all that he could to secure its enactment:

The use of wide wagon tires is a species of reform the value of which is no longer questioned. It is, however, one of those reforms that the people will not adopt without legal compulsion. The law does what it can to compel people to be peaceable and orderly; also to be cleanly in their domestic habits, though in both matters it is better for the people voluntarily to be so than otherwise. So it is with wagon tires. Farmers and teamsters know that the wide tire is better than the narrow, and yet they will not adopt it. Of necessity, therefore, we ask the legislature to require them to do what is best for them and for all of us.

If there is one place where it is more important than another to have wagon tires of great width it is Seattle. The climate is damp half the year and dry the other half. We have 200 miles of wooden sidewalks and about as much more timber on the streets in plank pavement and crossings. In the damp months these wooden ways get very soft, and then are easily and quickly destroyed by the heavily-laden, narrow-tired vehicles laboring over them. In the dry months it is much the same. The boards separate, warp, crack and splinter, when they are cut and ground up by these heavy, sharp-wheeled wagons. Several of the business streets have lately been paved with vitrified brick. It is good material for the purpose. Good as it is, though, it is unable to bear the mashing, cutting, tearing of the great trucks and coal wagons with their narrow wheels. The whole weight of the wheel rests on a single brick, or gets into the crevice between two bricks, where a wide wheel could not, with the result of a little damage each time and a good deal of damage after many times. The thin boards of our sidewalks are split by these wagons when crossing them with heavy loads of wood and coal. Heavy wagons are often stuck in the crack between the street car rails and the plank on the side, resulting in injuries to the street, the car line and the wagon, which could not occur were the wagons tired sufficiently wide. Such wagons have also on several occasions got between the rails of the steam cars and the plank and with their teams and drivers have been injured by the moving trains. Leaving these ways and going to the suburban streets and country roads, all know the effect of the narrow-wheeled wagon. In the summer it cuts into the earth, and with its every movement raises clouds of disagreeable dust. In the winter it cuts even more than in the summer, makes awful ruts, deep holes and itself is frequently mired. Were the tires wide, from four to eight inches, every wagon that passed over these earth roads would serve as a roller and would improve them rather than doing them injury.

On different occasions and at different places tests have been made to ascertain the utility or inutility of the wide wagon tire compared with the narrow. Almost without exception these have been in favor of the wide wheel. It has been found that the team that can haul a ton of merchandise in a narrow-wheeled wagon can, with no more effort, haul a ton and a quarter in a wide-wheeled one. Adding this 25 per cent gain to the gain that would result from the improved roadway, the lessening of dust and mud, and the saving of street paving, and there is an item of not far from one-half to the advantage of the wide wagon tire. This is well worth having, and the legislators cannot do better than enable their constituents to benefit to that extent.