Old Plank Road ~ Roanoke, MO
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 39° 18.920 W 092° 41.326
15S E 526829 N 4351816
A bowl was made from wood from the Plank Road which ran from Glasgow to Huntsville from 1853 to 1864. This bowl now resides in the Lewis Library in Glasgow, which is the 2nd oldest, continuously used library west of the Mississippi.
Waymark Code: WM74PM
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 09/01/2009
Views: 6
Marker Erected by: Austin Pierce
In Memory of the Snyder-Pierce Families.
County of Marker: Howard County.
Location of Marker: MO-3, ciy park, Roanoke.
Marker Text:
This Marker is designated to mark the "Old Plank Road" from Glasgow, Mo. to Huntsville, Mo.In 1852, during the "plank road" period of Missouri road history, Major Robert Walker, the engineer of the Old North Missouri Railroad, located and built what is still known as the "Plank Road" from Glasgow to Huntsville, most likely to accommodate the great tobacco business of Glasgow in those days. serving Northeast Missouri all the way to the Iowa line. The road was first brought to an established grade, on which 3½ inch thick white oak planks were laid.
It attracted a great deal of travel but like all other plank or "corduroy roads" proved to be a definite failure; the planks absorbing moisture of the earth, which caused them to assume the most fantastic shapes as the twisted and turned through warping.The road was built with Irish laborers brought there for just that purpose.
The Old St; Louis Stage Line also left Glasgow heading northwest, connecting with the Santa Fe trail and hauling all the excited "Forty-Niners" seeking the gold fields of California.