V1947-EA.DOC

Civil Engineering Aide, Ness City, Kansas, Summer 1947

KS HiWay Summer Job Opening: Francis Barclay, my uncle, wrote me in the spring of 1947 that they had summer job openings with the Kansas Highway Commission for Engineering Aides. I was then going to school at Kansas State. Although I was taking mechanical engineering and the work pertained to civil engineering, I wrote back that I'd be most happy to have such a summer job.

After spending the night with Francis, Margaret, Chuck & Dick Barclay, I reported in at headquarters of the sixth division of South West Kansas in Garden City. After a brief round of introductions I was instructed to continue on to the office they had set up in Ness City. I drove to Ness City in my 1933 Pontiac which I'd purchased at Pecos Texas while in service.

Ness City KS: I reported to the Resident Engineer John Walker, a competent old timer with a growl worse than his bite. John lived near Francis & Margaret and was held in high regard by them. Three months later, the summer over, I left in a 1938 Ford.

Fifteen to twenty people worked for John that summer. The main project was building a base and black top surface for the north-south highway plus surface treatment on other roads.

Kansas Terrain and Early Geological Conditions: Western Kansas has a loam soil, actually blow dirt, the accumulated dust of millions of years. At a prior geological time the region had been under water, a part of the Gulf of Mexico, soft lime deposits and cliffs of sea shells remained. As the region lifted and silt accumulated, the perimeter of the Gulf retreated. Ancient stream beds, which had left deposits of sand/gravel, were now hidden under the rolling hills of buffalo grass.

After statehood the region was surveyed and mapped in square one mile segments called Sections. The Section Lines were property lines and became the main routes of travel, by common agreement each owner had donated 60 feet of right of way on each side of the section lines to the county for use as roads. These early roads were simply dirt paths which became deep ruts when wet. Early cars had large diameter wheels for the pragmatic purpose of keeping the car above ground when the wheels were in six to twelve inch deep ruts. There was almost no bottom to a blow dirt road in wet weather.

Farmers cooperated to haul gravel on these roads that connected their farms to town. Later the section line roads became County Roads maintained by Township Taxes. Those used by mail carriers received special funds for elevating and graveling.

Roads were elevated so water would run off and wind could sweep them free of snow. Snow drifted downwind of tumbleweed filled fences along a low profile road, often making them impassable even for team and wagon. This tendency for snow to pile in drifts behind a barrier was eventually used to advantage. Snow fences of lath wired together were erected some fifty feet from the road out in the field. This deposited the snow on farm land and kept much of it out of a cut in the roadway. The back slope of cuts were widened to reduce their ability to cause snow drifts.

Early highways were simply the best route over county roads. Diagonal travel consisted of zig zagging along north-south and east-west section lines. Main routes between towns became designated as State or Federal highways. As such they were elevated higher, covered more generously with gravel and graded more frequently.

Bridges were mostly wooden with some iron spans on concrete piers and abutments. Concrete prior to 1930 seldom contained reinforcing and was made with sand rather than graduated aggregate. Better methods were needed. Portland Cement, a formula for making high quality Cement to bind aggregate came into use along with steel reinforcing. It was a blessing of nature that concrete and steel have almost identical thermal expansion ratios, which keeps their bond in tack through thermal cycles.

Previous Methods and Tangled Property: Older highway engineers had interesting tales of early day surveying methods and tangles to be resolved. Some of the original land boundaries before statehood had been set by men on horseback. The front man had a saddle bag full of rocks and a long rope between him and the man behind. The front man would drop a rock, when the back man came to it he'd yank the rope and the front man dropped another rock. The back man kept the front man in line if he veered from an object on the horizon and they counted rocks remaining to know the distance traveled.

Another engineer told of a survey in Topeka, Kansas where it was discovered that one side of a street contained one more house and lot than was recorded in the county records. They were old homes that had changed owners a number of times. If anyone had discovered the error they kept it quiet. The original builder had equally divided the block and built an extra house. They all paid taxes as if each was on a legal lot. He didn't say what was done about it.

Kansas Establishes a Highway Commission: About 1930 a Kansas Highway commission was established, for the first time roads and bridges came under the attention of graduate engineers. The new highway commission created specifications and standards as rapid as funds and technology would permit. Improvements were badly needed but it took time and experiment to evolve better methods of design & construction.

In some locations the narrow zig zag roads were paved with concrete without having prepared a foundation or transitioned turns. Concrete roads prior to 1930 were rare, most were layer upon layer of gravel. Black-top roads, asphalt mixed with gravel, were more economical than concrete and much preferred by the public than loose gravel which would fly from tires and pit windshields.

Keep the Road Bed Dry: It was soon found that concrete roads did not solve the problem of mud, the ordinary dirt under the slabs collected moisture, would freeze and buckle the slabs. Destruction from the under side had not been anticipated. Early black-top roads were also destroyed due to moisture problems. Three inches of asphalt and gravel on top of blow dirt just couldn't support much of a load when the dirt got wet. Engineers discovered that the base of a road had to be kept free of excess moisture so it could not freeze and swell and needed to be of sufficient depth so it could transmit concentrated loads under wheels to the foundation strata of the road bed. Narrow steel rims on wagon wheels concentrated loads. Iron tractor lugs cut up the roadbed and were prohibited by law. In time tractors and other farm equipment were mounted on tires so they could be moved along and across surfaced roads.

The most widely used method for making a base was to compact a mix dirt, gravel and asphalt to a depth of from 12 to 18 inches. Various machines were made for mixing this volume of material. The biggest problem in western Kansas was finding gravel of adequate quality and quantity near the site.

The soft limestone of western Kansas was no good for road construction, it would wear away to powder. Granite type gravel was available if one could find the old stream beds but these were hard to find and when located the largest pieces were walnut sized and often ground round by stream bed wear. Sand of the sand dune was found in some locations.

Potential sites for material were hunted for and found by auguring holes in accessible areas of marginal land within hauling distance of the construction site.

It was quite important that the materials used for road construction have the proper gradation; i.e., the proper mix of large, medium and small sized pieces. This is to assure that when packed together, they would form a solid mass, smaller pieces fill the voids around bigger pieces. The larger pieces provide shear strength so the composite will not flow or slump. Kerosene lubricated asphalt fills the fine pores and seals out water.

A three inch black-top layer on top of a good base provides a smooth wearing surface. The quality of material used in the top three inches was as stringently specified as that applicable to high grade concrete. My main job for the summer was to help test the sand, gravel and silt samples to achieve the proper mix.

Testing Sand: Samples of rock, sand and silt were taken at the source sites and from these a percentage of each was specified and hauled by the contractor to the road bed. The materials were then mixed and shaped into a windrow ,a continuous triangular shaped mound along the roadway. At intervals along the windrow material samples were taken. A section would be shoveled through, then a slice of material removed and run through a sample splitter, a metal trough with partitions, which would dump half the sample and retain half. In this way the size of the sample was reduced from about 100 lbs to 10 lbs by repeated splittings. The remaining sample was placed in a canvas bag along with a slip of paper denoting the station where it was obtained. The roadway was measured off in 100 ft station intervals from beginning to end. Thus station 62 was 6200 feet from the start.

The material samples were brought back to the engineering office where they were emptied into numbered rectangular metal pans. The station and pan number were recorded and the pan placed on a gasoline camper stove to dry, when dry the sample was weighed. The weighing mechanism was a hand held heavy duty brass balance beam with sliding weight from which dangled a brass bucket with the sample to be weighed.

The sample was then washed and the rinse passed through a 200 mesh screen, face powder fine, to remove all dirt. The sample was dried again and weighed to determine the amount of dirt or silt washed away.

The remaining sample was poured into the top of a set of stacked gradation screens. They were brass cylinder segments each containing a screen and stacked in size sequence with the largest on top. The set was placed on a shaking machine which enabled each grain to fall through till it was retained at its size level.

The screens were emptied, one at a time into the brass weighing bucket and the weight recorded each time a new screens worth of material was added. A Log Sheet was created and these weights vs size was recorded for each sample. By use of a slide rule the sizes were converted to percent, a measure of gradation quality.

If the sample was out of specification, it was determined how much of what kind of sweetener was required and the contractor informed of how much of what to haul where. With this type of material control a good solid road bed could be assured.

Speeding Up the Process: That summer, as the contractor got into high gear, the samples to be run began to flood the place. I found that it had been common practice over the years to work crews of people from daylight to after dark running these samples. These long hours of drying, washing, shaking and weighing sand didn't appeal to me. Besides I was dating a girl in Great Bend about 50 miles away, working till 9:00-10:00 pm didn't permit much of an evening especially when one had to start work again at 6:00 am.

Although I was the new hire, I began to organize the operation, getting off early was my incentive, all preferred a shorter day and provided enthusiastic support.

The operation had been a free for all where each man processed a sample to completion and then started on another. I converted them into specialists. Sample gatherers, washers, dryers, and weigher/calculators.

I bought more pans with my own money so all samples brought in could be put in work at the same time. We made wash racks for the pans and screens plus stools for the guys to sit on. We also added branch off’s from the water hose so six or so samples could be washed at one time.

I built a long shelf for the gasoline stoves. The stoves were limited in supply and too expensive to buy with our own money. We placed the stoves side by side in a long row so the pans could be placed end to end sharing stoves thus increasing by 1/3 the samples that could be heated. Metal pipe racks were arranged above the stoves to salvage waste heat and shields of tin placed to guide the heat. This cut heating time in half. By experiment it was found that by stirring samples with a trowel the drying time could again be cut in half. Thus one man was assigned to keep the stoves fuel tanks pumped up, pans shifted and samples stirred. The stoves burned unleaded gas and was air pressurized into the burners.

A bench was rigged for the weighing process and a rack made to hold the bucket and scale while the samples were weighed. We only had one shaker but obtained an extra set of screens, one set shaking and one set weighing.

I found a way to eliminate the need for a man to operate the slide rule. I bought two wooden slide rules for a dollar each at the local drug store and spliced two sliding parts together. This eliminated the need to move the slide as would normally be done when you ran off scale. I also showed the fellows how to use the C1 & D scales rather than the C & D scales so that the slide could be set once and the % read directly without moving the slide again. The slide rule was then tacked on a board by the scales so the weigher could read percent when he recorded the weight and never had to hold the slide rule.

We began to see that we could process a lot of samples with fewer people. Before going into full gear we got a commitment from the Resident Engineer that we could get off when the samples were run. John wasn't aware of the full extent of our mass production methods as he was often out in the field. In fact, due to the experience of previous years he’d put a requests in for more help. John willingly agreed provided he didn't have to provide any more help than those present. From then on we went full out with our improvising.

Shortly thereafter we were reporting to work at 8:00 a.m. and finishing about 4:00 p.m. In fact became so efficient it was embarrassing. The request for more help was canceled and some of our crew was put on other jobs.

It was fun and soon John was parading visiting Engineers from the Division and State offices through our sample factory. Personally I felt that we'd only made a start on what could be done and on my own time began to design a machine which would do the job. At first this was intriguing to the other fellows, then they realized I just might be able to produce a machine to replace them -- their enthusiasm rapidly waned. However I had no money to build such an experimental contraption and was dubious of how it would be received if it put people out of work. I was soon back in school and gravel samples were quickly forgotten.

Car Problems: The 1933 Pontiac I had at the beginning of the summer consumed much of my spare time. One Saturday night I drove to Garden City to the home of Aunt Margaret and Uncle Francis, bought some parts and with the help of my cousin Charles, who was in high school then, overhauled the Pontiac in their back yard. We put in new rings, ground the valves and adjusted the rods. Chuck endured the arduous task of filing the oversize rings, the only ones we could buy, to clamp small enough to fit the piston. We forgot to check the distributor drive setting when taken apart & I set it by guess; it backfired fiercely as my uncle gave us a shove to start. With my cousin guiding and my uncle pushing with his car, I rode the running board and reached in to the engine, rotating the distributor till it oriented correctly and the engine started and ran smoothly.

I don't recall why but I drove back to Ness City without a muffler. I practically idled through towns to keep the noise down and then roared along out in the country. I hadn't realized a car engine without an exhaust pipe could make so much noise! However the overhaul did not hold up to the demands I placed on it.

My sister Phyllis lived in Waltheim Hall and introduced me to Helen Hammond, one of her many room mates, who lived at Great Bend KS. Her father was editor and owner of the Great Bend News paper. Helen invited me to come see her and I did whenever I could get away on week ends. He father was a bit stiff, but her mother was a wonderful lady, making up for a domineering grandmother. After a few fast trips to and from Great Bend, the Pontiac’s straight eight engine’s rods began to knock. I usually drove at 90 mph except when required by ordinances or safety reasons to slow down.

The crankshaft on this straight 8 engine was not sufficiently rugged, some of the throws on the crankshaft had become flat and several of the rods kept pounding loose. I'd take em up and then leave on a 90 mph drive to/from Great Bend, then take them up again. I finally decided to drive the Pontiac to my home town and get the crankshaft ground round. I took off on a Saturday evening. The knocking became worse and disconnecting the spark plug to that cylinder didn't help. I was down to 20 mph when the rod finally went through the block as I started to leave Oakley, Kansas. I called my Dad. Dad & my Uncle Lee Kump came and towed me home. I had put at least 40,000 miles on that car, the one I'd purchased while in service in Pecos Texas, it was 11 years old when I bought it. I have no idea how many miles it had but it must have been at least 150,000.

That ended the fast trips to Great Bend. That was just as well because Helen met a “nice outgoing boy” at a church conference. He was a good looking guy, also attending Kstate, and was soon her steady escort; with plans to marry. I was able to wish him well, knowing it was he, not me, that had to cope with grandma. In a way I felt relieved, somehow I knew it wouldn’t work.

Almost all pre WWII cars except for the Ford V-8 had problems with rods. In the early days of the automobile cars/engines were built by excellent mechanics but without the benefit of being engineered and subjected to qualification tests. The Ford V-8 was one of the first mass produced engines designed to solve many of the chronic problems of that time. The Ford V-8 crankshaft was half the length, of much heavier construction and with larger diameter throws; these engines did not throw a rod.

Uncle Lee Kump, who ran the Ford garage in Oberlin, sold me a 1938 Ford. I was soon finding how fast it would go and acquainted myself with it's idiosyncrasies. Its first quirk on a trial run was a squeaking generator bearing which I quieted with oil from the dip stick.

At one time it had been in a wreck and the frame was out of line. At 60 mph it would get the shakes, then at 70 and up it would smooth out. Later the engine went out on the way home from school, between Phillipsburg and Smith Center, Uncle Lee and cousin Don pulled me home. I put in a new Mercury 100 HP engine during that vacation. It would go 110 mph on the straight and level.

Shortly after I got back to Ness City a bunch of us decided to go to a nearby town to a movie. We gassed up and had oil added before leaving. A mile from the filling station the oil filler cap fell between the fan and radiator and smashed the radiator. The filling station owner paid for fixing the radiator but later I replaced it with a new one. The old patched one wouldn't cool the engine at my high speeds.

Broce Construction Company: Broce Construction Company was hauling gravel to the job from a pasture. Under the rolling hills of the pasture was good quality granite gravel, I wouldn't have dreamed it was there. We had taken my 38 Ford out there for some reason and hadn't been there long when young Broce, old man Broce's son, who was running the job yelled, "I need a car, one of the men’s been hurt!" In an instinctive motion I pulled the keys from my pocket, threw them to him and yelled "that one" pointing to my car. We'd never met before, moments later they had the man on the way to the doctor.

Young Broce was about my age appreciated my throwing him the keys with no questions asked. Later we shared a ride and he told the story, "Back in the days of King Herrod all the Kings men were standing about shooting camel shit, Bull shit being practically unheard of in those days, - - -". He had both a serious and humorous side. We sensed the potential of a long term close friendship. It's always regrettable when life’s pathways are divergent.

People and Places: A number of us that worked for the highway commission roomed at the only hotel in town. After a few weeks it was like a family affair. We ate our meals at restaurants, a limited few, and competed for seats with local people & those on construction crews. There was a sizable crew putting up a concrete grain elevator, I found it of interest to follow their construction techniques. Once they started pouring concrete they never stopped. The circular interior and exterior wooden forms were jacked up periodically, after reinforcing steel was spliced on. A fresh pour of concrete was applied and the process continued creating a taller and taller structure.

Once I wrenched my left wrist and went to the Doctor to make sure nothing was broken. He looked at it with a Fluoroscope, found nothing wrong and gave me a prescription. I took it to the drug store to have it filled. The pharmacist was a young fellow we'd become acquainted with and I asked him what was in the pills and what they were supposed to do for a sore wrist. He smiled and said actually nothing, they were sugar pills, only good for their psychological effect. My temper flared. I thanked him for being truthful and said to forget the pills. I wondered how many people the doctor had on sugar pill psychology.

The crew of guys I worked with were a lot of fun, a good bunch. John Krouse was a big likable fellow. He'd grown up on a farm near by, it often seemed he could have out pulled a horse. Some of us would wrestle a bit after lunch. They were always trying to get John and I to have a go at it! It was ridiculous, like Mutt and Jeff. Mutt & Jeff was an early day comic strip about the antics of a big and little guy. John and I finally had our tussle; he stood, I tussled! He was about 6 foot 4 inches, 250 lbs and all muscle. Thankfully he was jovial.

After I was back in school John wrote of how one of the fellows had been killed. He was a young nice looking hyperactive kid who was in love with a girl that lived south of town. Her father had a large herd of Black Angus cattle and we kidded him that he was simply in love with all those Black Angus cows as she was an only child. Late at night he ran into a big steel funnel on the side of the road. The funnel was pulled behind a tractor down the row of gravel to equalize the gravel’s distribution. He and his car clogged the funnel, he'd been drinking, but at least was alone.

One of the fellows lived with his wife in an apartment. They were an attractive looking couple, had a baby and like most newlyweds were always broke. He needed new brakes on his car so I offered to change them for him. He helped me and we began visiting about Cadets. He'd been in Flying Cadets but had washed out during flight training. His wife brought us some beer and he got to telling me of his most embarrassing moment.

He was in cadet uniform riding the bus back to camp from a furlough. Something he'd eaten didn't agree with him and he was having difficulty staving off a bowel movement until he got to the next bus stop. He hurriedly told the driver he'd be a few moments when he got off the bus and rushed to the men’s room. They were all pay toilets, 5 cents at that time. He reached for his change and shifted his jowls to block any further movement, there were no nickels! The main colon had already started moving its load and he was afraid to waddle out in search of someone with change. In desperation he got down on his hands and knees to go under the door. He got his head and shoulders under and his back bowed, the door was simply too low and the contortion and strain was too much; Blooy.....the pucker burst! The dreaded unthinkable event had happened. He felt/smelled the gassy putrid mess overflow his shorts, run down his legs on his socks and shoes; soaking through his pants to his handkerchief, shirt tail and bill fold, Yuk!! Then panic overcame physical discomfort, his clean clothes were on the bus. In desperation he striped and was washing his clothes like babies diapers in the stool as he heard the bus toot it's horn several times.......the bus pull out leaving him stranded!

Shortly thereafter he was found by the Negro janitor, for whom he had nothing but genuine praise. The janitor took his clothes, washed them with soap, dried and ironed them while he sat in his birthday suit behind those graffiti adorned walls.

He was a sensitive guy with a good sense of humor, as he told his tale I laughed till my sides ached, the tears rolled and I had trouble catching my breath. As he told it I watched him relive those moments of frustration, anguish, hopeless futility, gratitude and relief.

Man is the only animal embarrassed about the process of elimination, he's also the only animal that derives humor from such a predicament, after the fact.

One of the fellows delighted in striking safety matches on the sole of his shoe. Pre 1930 matches had wood stems and were used to light kerosene stoves and lamps. They were called kitchen matches. About 1930 paper safety matches were introduced and called Gofers; i.e., try one and go-for-another. People used to strike kitchen matches on the sole of their shoe or with a fast swipe along a denim trouser leg. Thus a nonchalant striking of a paper safety match on the sole of a shoe looked natural enough until the other guy tried it and couldn't get his to light. With a straight face this fellow would show how to hold the match and demonstrated how to do it, as if anyone could light such a safety match on their shoe. Sometimes it was most difficult keeping a straight face watching the puzzlement of the unsuccessful one being coached. He was usually never told that the material from a safety match package had been carefully applied, rubbed into the instep of the guys shoe where it wouldn't wear off. Sometimes the pool hall kibitzers could be left in puzzlement for days, failing in their attempt to demonstrate how to do it but insisting they'd seen it done.

Another of this guys stunts was to strike up a conversation with someone at the bar in a pool hall and subsequently challenge him; "I'll bet you can't tell me the date, the exact date, of the coin I have in my hand, winner buys the drinks." Immediately the fellow figures it's a trick coin with the date removed. He'd be assured preferably by an independent bystander that the date was legible. The guy would restate the bet that the other fellow couldn't tell the date on the coin, winner buys the drinks. After repeated assurances and restatement of the bet the man would finally accept the challenge. After all it was only for a couple of beers, he couldn't lose much so he'd say all right I'll bet. Where upon he'd be handed the coin, read the date aloud, then hand the coin back with a grin knowing he'd won. The guy that originated the bet would studiously look at the returned coin and with a sigh of defeat say, your right, that’s the date all right, you win, you get to buy the drinks!

The other fellows grin would disappear and a non pulsed expression remained while he mentally replayed the terms of the bet, then the expression would turn to laughter, at himself, aware the bet had been stated repeatedly "winner buys the drinks".

I watched this stunt pulled many times with the stranger buying the beers 90 % of the time and rarely developing a feeling of malice, it was usually considered worth the beer to learn to listen.

Back in school mired in technical studies I'd often yearned to share in their uncomplicated fun and zest for life.