Solid As A Brick...
Legend May Have Had It That America's Streets Were Paved With Gold, But Under The Asphalt In Winchester Lie Solid Paving Bricks
By William Jackson
Winchester Journal Herald
April 7, 1979
Each year at this time the paved streets of Winchester, Randolph County and the rest of the state begin blossoming with pot-holes. As the asphalt begins to deteriorate under the affects of four months this winter and 12 months of traffic there can be seen, peeking out at the bottom of the city pot-holes, the paving bricks that were laid in pace 70 years ago.
According to Bob Pugh, of Eastern Indiana Asphalt, it has only been in about the last 25 years that most of the streets of Winchester began to be paved over with the modern, economical asphalt. Immigrants who arrived in this country at the turn of the century came in the belief that the streets of America were paved with gold. But those who came to Winchester found instead sturdy bricks under their feet.
Art Catey, the son of a contractor and one time street commissioner of Winchester and himself a contractor and street worker, recalls that brick pavement began going down on streets in this area around 1906, and that by 1913 most of the work was done. One contractor who did a lot of this work was Allen J. Shapier, of Peru. When Shapier would come into town he would stay at the Randolph Hotel on the corner of Meridian and Franklin Streets and Catey's father, Stacy, would call on him for a visit. Stacy Catey was a teamster and contractor, and ended up doing quite a bit of sub-contracting for Shapier while he was working on the streets, supplying and hauling materials.
When Washington Street was paved, Catey recalls, the interurban line was already running, with tracks down the center of the street. The wagons full of brick would come down the street and their loads would be stacked along the curbs, which had already been installed. Often the curbs were poured concrete, but there are still places in town where original curbs made of limestone can be seen along streets, although they are now almost completely covered by years of paving on top of paving.
Pugh says that Winchester's streets were provided with a good base when the paving bricks were originally laid down, and that that base still holds up today. The original surface of the streets of dirt, and this would be graded off of the surveyor's specifications to achieve the proper grade, Catey recalls. A base of concrete of from four to six inches would then be poured, and over this a layer of fine sand was placed, in which the paving bricks would be embedded.
The bricks were large, Catey says, and weighed about eight pounds apiece. These were laid in place by hand, and Catey recalls that many of the workers who performed this back-breaking work were blacks. There were undoubtedly also good manners of the workers who were made up of Irish and Italian immigrants newly arrived in this country.
The work was probably considered unskilled, but the bricklayers quickly developed a talent for placing the paving bricks quickly and precisely. Those who kept their jobs developed large, strong hands from handling thousands of the eight-pound bricks day after day.
Although brick streets are a standard symbol of town and city life in the early part of the century, brick was used as a common paving material in this area for a period of only about 12 years, Catey says. Most of the brick paving in the Winchester was done between 1906 and 1918. "I would imagine that there weren't many brick streets built after 1920."
By the 1920s streets were being paved with concrete, and now asphalt has been laid over most of the concrete.
What happened? Did the bricks wear out? Were they unsuitable as a paving materials?
"They never wore out," Catey says with certainty. "They were hard brick." But over the years they would settle some and get out of line, despite the sound base beneath them. Another problems was that when utilities would have to make cuts in the streets and bricks would be taken up it was nearly impossible to replace them evenly. As the street surfaces gradually became more and more uneven, they were covered over with materials that were easier to smooth and repair, such as asphalt.
Despite its durability, the expense of paving with brick on a large scale today is prohibitive. Decorative work, on sidewalks and occasionally driveways, is still done, but the cost of labor makes it unlikely that the picturesque brick streets of yesterday will make a reappearance, even if they are not as susceptible to potholes. A worker who laid brick in the first decade of this century would probably make a dollar a day or less. Compared to these wages, a construction worker today would make well over a week's salary with each hour.
Although many things have remained the same in Winchester over the years, and a visitor from the last century would still recognize many of the sites familiar today, the brick streets have gone the way of the hitching racks around the courthouse square, which were replaced with parking spaces by 1925. But for those who may become too nostalgic over the passing of these relics of the past, Catey recalls a weekly chore to which he and a few friends had to attend in the days of the hitching racks, while his father was street commissioner.
Early each Sunday morning, before worshippers began streaming to the churches, Catey and his helpers would be out on the square, cleaning up the "street pollution" left behind by the horses which had been left parked in town on Saturday night.
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Notes from Mick:
The last brick street to be paved with asphalt in Winchester was Pearl. The old Mutual Savings building is on Pearl Street, running from N. East to N. West St. There is a stretch of brick street that runs on the north side of the RR depot at the east end of Railroad Ave., back to the rear of the Ohio Valley Gas Co. meter shop but I believe that's RR property. Still it is a good example of what the public streets once looked like.
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