It is still impossible to figure just when the Knobbs Creek bridge, steel and concrete structure the erection of which will open to traffic from one end to the other, the Newland brick road, somewhat more than 12 miles in length and the first paved State highway in the County, will be completed. Progress has again been halted by lack of bridge material.
It was calculated, of course, to have the Knobbs Creek bridge completed by the time the last brick of paving on the road was laid. But the calculation turned out a miscalculation. Delay in the arrival of the fabricated steel for the bridge held up construction of the bridge week after week as the road itself was nearing completion.
The last brick on the road was laid Thursday afternoon, August 10. It would have been ready for traffic two weeks later but for the yawning chasm at Knobbs Creek. Even then the fabricated steel for the bridge had not arrived.
It did arrive, however, on August 27, and on Monday, August 28, work on the bridge was actually begun. The idea then prevailed that the bridge could be completed without further delay other than that due to interruptions by bad weather or other such mishaps. Piling for the first abutment was driven. Piling for the second was being placed on Thursday. The bridge builders were ready to pour concrete, but no steel reinforcing was at hand, and with railroad equipment tied up with strikes, nobody knows when this steel will arrive. Perhaps not until the big chiefs at the railroad workers and railroad executives decide that it is time to begin sending out something except hot air.
Thought a State road, projected as the beginning of an Elizabeth City to Winston highway directly across the Dismal Swamp, the Newland road was built by Pasquotank County. Pasquotank has spent on the road in round figures $275,000. Of this, Pasquotank will get back from the State, in round figures again, $225,000. The $50,000 discrepancy is due to the fact that the road was undertaken first as a County project and the Pasquotank Highway Commission had built 2 ½ miles of brick road on a sand cushion when the State took the highway over. This sand cushion segment of the road the State will not pay for. The remaining 10 miles built by the Pasquotank Highway Commission under the supervision of and according to specifications furnished by the State is laid on monolithic base, and for the road the County will be reimbursed. The money is due in two years but is said to be available as soon as needed after the County has turned this road over to the State.
The County is figuring on having this $235,000 to spend on County roads; that is, roads which are not a part of the State system. For there is still $125,000 left of the County’s $750,000 derived from the sale of road bonds; and this, it is believed, will pay for the proposed Mt. Hermon road and also for Pasquotank County’s part of the 16-foot concrete road from Elizabeth City to the Perquimans County line.
Coming in the Perquimans road, it is contended that the Pasquotank Highway Commission agreed to pay for 7/16ths of the cost of hard-surfacing this road, without asking for reimbursement from the State , on the understanding that the State would pay all grading and structural costs and would carry on a nine-foot road at the same type from the Pasquotank River to Currituck Courthouse. This is why the statement of State Engineer McNutt the other day, that after passing Robinson’s farm, on the Camden State bridge road, concrete would give place to gravel-clay construction was received with so much surprise here.
Pasquotank embarked on its road building program in September 1919, with a bond issue of half a million dollars, to which a quarter of a million dollars was added later. The first road was built to Weeksville, a distance of 9.3 miles, which was a 15-foot road of grouted brick construction on a sand cushion. The cost, exclusive of machinery purchased, was about $26,000 a mile. The Newland road, of nine-foot width but on a monolithic base, cost about $23,000 a mile on the same basis.
Both the Newland road and the Weeksville road are widened somewhat just before they come into the city. The Weeksville road in the approach to the city, beginning at the new Fair Ground, is 18 feet wide. The Newland road from Knobb’s Creek to North Road street is 15 feet wide.
There are many in the county who think that the Pasquotank Highway Commission could build roads more cheaply by putting their construction out to contractors. There are also many who oppose brick highways and favor concrete construction of the type being used by the State in building the Perquimans road. This Perquimans road will afford as interesting basis of comparison, both as to cost, service and durability.
From front page of the Daily Advance, Elizabeth City, N.C., Sept. 8, 1922
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