Why Concrete Pavement?
BUILDING AMERICA: BEFORE THE “MODEL T” We were driving on concrete pavement 17 years before Henry Ford. Today, it’s the heart of America’s surface transportation infrastructure. Bellfontaine, Ohio, 1889, in the true spirit of American innovation, engineer George W. Bartholomew proposed the idea of concrete pavement to the city officials. Two years later (and a full 17 years before the first mass-produced automobile–the “Model T” Ford) America’s first concrete pavement was laid, an 8-foot-wide strip of Main Street along the side of Bellefontaine’s Courthouse Square. Wagons and teams of horses were used to haul the cement, gravel and sand to the paving site. Today, America’s legacy-it’s greatness-is all about it’s highways, streets, roads and airports. It’s about this nation’s surface transportation infra-structure, a hallmark of civilization and a key to this nation’s prosperity. Automobile, truck, bus and airport traffic is growing every year, and the loads are getting heavier. Today’
