Civil Engineering Aid, Leoti KS Summer 1948
The summer of 1948, with a semester to go before
graduation from K-State, I returned to work for the SW Division of KS Highway
Commission and was assigned to the Leoti KS Resident Engineer. I reported to the Resident Engineer’s office
at the east end of their new City Hall.
I was greeted by a fellow in attire fit for a Hollywood movie to
depicting extending the railroads west.
In fact he had indeed worked as a Civil Engineer building
railroads. He looked like an Army
Retread, out of the old horse cavalry.
He wore a big wide brimmed peaked hat, as in movies of US Cavalry. He wore britches designed for use with boots
with lace up type boots that came up to just below the knee. He was well prepared to traverse through
thorny thickets. I quelled my initial
instinct to laugh – soon aware he was very proud of his prior experiences and
the uniform of his trade. He proved to be
a very nice fellow, though a bit odd.
He treated everyone well and sustained an air of professional
pride. The crew liked, respected and
accepted him -- with a smile. He
treated me as if an equal, aware I would soon graduate with a degree in
mechanical engineering. He took time to
show me special applications of trigonometry, used in railroad engineering, as
if necessary to prove he knew his trade.
I was there as an Engineers Aid.
The main task for the summer was to reroute the highway from the west
edge of town, up through main street – an obvious political maneuver so the State
would pay to pave Leoti’s main street.
Leoti was in Wheat County, on US 96, with Scott Co and
county seat Scott City to the east and Greeley Co with Tribune its county set
to the west. Conditions in Leoti
revealed that times had been tough, they were still recovering from the
depression, drought and dust storm years, their recovery lagging behind other
counties. Dry land farming was the only
industry. My home town area of Decatur
Co, three counties from CO and next to NB, had by comparison made considerable
recovery from those difficult times.
Leoti, like Pecos TX where I’d been stationed during WW II, it was off
the beaten path.
I was assigned to work with Cliff Wright a long time
employee of the highway department who had an Civil Engineers classification
via the Grand Daddy Clause when the KS Highway Commission established new
standards and classifications. Cliff, a
nice fellow and a pleasure to work with, relied on many years as an Engineers
Aid during which he’d learned how the highway commission built and maintained
highways and bridges. I had known Cliff
the prior summer in Ness City – Cliff had gathered materials samples & I
operated the crew that tested them for highway reconstruction.
Our initial task, with Cliff in charge, was to stake out
the new highway route through town and diagonally NE back to the existing
highway route. It was a relatively
simple surveying task, but included most of the principles. Cliff ran the level and transit when needed,
I helped measure and set alignment and slope stakes. We ran cross section elevations for every 100 feet, for
comparison after construction to determine the amount of cut and fill done by
the earth work construction contractor – he got paid for how much earth he cut,
filled, compacted and graded.
There were other contracts going on in that area, mostly
maintenance and re-raveling of roads.
This required taking and testing samples which was done in a materials
lab set up at the east end with separate outside access.
The City Hall was the new pride and joy of the town. A nice looking structure made of “local”
sand stone from north of Scott City.
The City Offices were on the main floor, accessible from the main
entrance, up a flight of steps which gave dignity to the place. In front was a beautiful new blue Lincoln –
it belonged to Bo Minor, the City Clerk.
Bo was a big fellow, about our age, unmarried, who grew up in a home
across from the high school. The first
time I saw him he was typing – very rapidly with a dexterity one would not
expect from a person his size. Bo later
came to work for the Highway Dept.
The American Legion occupied the down stairs, in fact
community support for this new building was financed in part by donations to
build a decent Legion Hall. The City
Offices were a means to collect rent and pay for utilities.
The 10 or so fellows, who worked out of this Resident
Engineers office, frequented the Legion facilities when not engaged on the
job. The club manager was a
charismatic, gravel voiced fellow, well suited to the job. In this dim lit interior, the off duty
personalities of the fellows came to light.
Ernie Zinn, one of our crew, of local origin, had been an armature
boxer. Thankfully he was a mellow
fellow. There was little to do for
“excitement” in the town, many of the young fellows drank too much out of
boredom. Bo Minor would periodically
provide the transportation to Towner CO, the nearest source of liquor for Dry
KS. It was a chummy bunch, thus
important that they, like Ernie, remained amicable after several drinks. I seldom participated, usually driving north
to home on week ends.
I’d drive home and stay with my parents in order to be
with Mary Hamilton. Mary was home on
vacation from school at Colorado Woman’s College. We planned to get married as soon as we were both out of
school. I would graduate the following
January, at mid semester, and she at the end of that school year.
While we were surveying the route, a large trailer with
Watson Construction Company painted on it’s side was placed near the site. Cliff said, that’s going to be your office,
it’s required by contract that the contractor provide a place for you to test
soil samples. Had I been taking Civil
Engineering I would have known about such tests. Cliff explained how to do the tests using a soil sample test kit
provided by the Division Office. The
tests were to determine the optimum amount of moisture required to achieve
maximum compaction of the road bed soil.
I didn’t occupy the office very long, as it didn’t take much time to
conduct the tests. I’d weigh a soil
samples then add increasing percents of water to a series of samples. I then compacted each test sample in the
kits container by dropping the supplied weight from a specified height the
specified number of times. I would then
weigh how much I was able to put in the container for a given amount of
water. From this series I plotted the
minimum and maximum amounts of water content required to provide maximum soil
density. It was a sensible practical
method of emulating “sheep’s foot” compression. Contractors would cut dirt from ditch locations and dump it on
fill locations. Grader equipment would
spread it out and large water filled roller drums, with protruding steel
“sheep’s feet”, would be rolled repeatedly over the new fill to compact the
dirt.
The contractor had the city lay a pipe to the site and
from it filled a tank wagon which the driver would sprinkle over the dirt laid
down as part of the compaction process.
Cliff being the Sr member of this operation, and with much more
experience, would drive out on the job to observe the progress. We would notice that the soil being dumped
was powdery and dry, there had been no recent rainfall, it would flow out, it was
powdery dry black dirt. He’d shake his
head and get after the contractor again to haul more water – to get an extra
truck, not enough water was being applied.
The contractor added an extra. even larger, truck to haul more water
The contractor was using a large integral tractor pulled
scoops. The big diesel engines extended
forward of the tractor wheels, counter balanced by the weight of the trailing
large scoop full of dirt. They could
haul a lot of dirt in a day and did.
Water hauling could not keep up – though consuming water as fast as the
city pipe could provide it.
Fortunately it would have probably worked out all right
if no water had been added. All dirt
had been moved in a short time and laid down with the same consistency. Time treated the entire segment the
same. All settled and compacted evenly
due to traffic and subsequent moisture drawn up into the road bed. It’s very important, especially in high fill
locations next to bridges, that all dirt be compacted and uniformly. Many bridge approaches in those days had
dips near bridges due to uneven compaction with time. Later the crew spent hours and hours using “planimeter”
instruments to determine the amount of area between the original and final
cross section plots. The cut vs fill
measurements, taken for contractor payments, did not reveal the amount of
shrinkage there should have been.
Luckily the road turned out to be beautifully smooth – mother nature
compressed the road bed and achieved uniform natural shrinkage.
At the time I was driving a “used” 1939 Ford I’d bought
from my Uncle Lee Kump, the home town Ford Dealer. Lee was able to give me a good price, as it had been in a wreak
which caused it to shake a bit at about 60 mph. I had used it to drive to school. It’s original engine went out on the way home from school. Lee sold me at his cost a new “100 hp
Mercury engine”, which I installed in his garage. With this new engine the car would pass through the shakes at 60
mph and run smooth as could be at 80 plus.
I almost lost it on one trip back to Leoti when making sharp turns on a
diagonal stretch with sharp turns SW of Oberlin. There had been a rain that left mud on the lower edge of a sharp
banked turn. I hit that turn fast – too
late I noticed the mud!! I barely
managed to keep on the road by making use of a dry upper edge, the tires
grabbed and held after the first mud wiped off the tires – it was frightening
and enormous relief when the tires regained their grip -- I held it precisely
on that narrow strip. That made me a
believer to never trust a roadbed you could not see well in advance after a
rain. That one turn came very close to
ending my career.
On a return trip home going north abruptly the left rear
tire blew out!! I got the car stopped
OK and went back and picked up rubber.
The entire tread came off, it was a new tire about one week old. When I took the tire back the dealer asked,
“how fast were you driving?” I said,
“probably a bit over 90.” He shook his
head saying, “never drive a new tire that fast – it takes time for a tire to
break in.” However he replace the tire
at no cost.
When I left Leoti the end of that summer for school,
little did I know I’d be back under a new Resident Engineer to run a survey
crew for an extensive amount of new road construction – or that I’d bring Mary
to Leoti and set up our first home.