We discovered corduroy roads at the two ends of a postbellum logging tramway
in coastal South Carolina. Both were in the marshes and apparently carried
the tram out to open water in the creeks. The logs were quite large and in
several layers of alternating logs. I think they were cypress.
Since neither find would be impacted due to wetland restrictions, we
documented the road in the report with a site map and photographs. These
were pretty common features in the coastal south due to the extensive
marshes and wetlands.
Lucy Wayne
----- Original Message -----
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2005 1:02 PM
Subject: Re: corduroy roads
> In a message dated 12/15/2005 10:24:33 AM Mountain Standard Time,
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
>> Do any of you have any experience with this type of resource from an
>> archaeological perspective? If so, what did you do? How did you evaluate
>> and document the resource? Beyond detailed drawings and photographs,
>> what else can/should we consider?
>>
>> Any help or advice would be sincerely appreciated.
>>
> While it was not a corduroy road, a few years ago we were called to
> investigate the discovery of an 1870s wooden bridge structure on 600 North
> in Salt Lake
> City. The short bridge (perhaps 20 ft long) was found buried under four
> feet
> of fill at the end of a freeway offramp which had been removed as the
> freeway
> through Salt Lake was being reconstructed. In fact, the impression of the
> end of the ramp from all of its weight had distorted some of the wood at
> one end
> of the bridge. However, the bridge was largely intact. We documented it
> in
> the midst of road construction all around us (four feet above us as well)
> largely by measurements, photography and plotting of its exact location
> from known
> points in the vicinity. There was little to "excavate", though we were
> able
> to recover a number of artifacts around and on it. Interestingly, it was
> constructed using cut nails (no wire nails were noted) which, with other
> features,
> helped us to place its age in the 1870s.
>
> When we had completed our recordation, we had the construction crews pull
> it
> up to see what was underneath (a few artifacts were found there too), and
> then
> continued to monitor and photograph as they tore it apart to remove it.
>
> It was a unique resource which really shouldn't have existed at all. It
> appears that it was placed there to get traffic over a boggy spot in the
> road. It
> was marginalized, and over time, abandoned and finally covered over as the
> road was widened and surrounding land was filled in and built upon.
>
>
> Mike
>
> Mike Polk
> Sagebrush Consultants, L.L.C.
> Ogden, Utah
>
>
|