July 30, 1850, Democratic State Register (Watertown, WI)
This is one of the first mentions of what we know today as Plank Road. With the unreliability of overland roads in that era, fashioning a road made of wooden planks seemed, for a time, to be a smart move. The plank road boom, like many other early technologies, promised to transform the way people lived and worked and led to permissive changes in legislation seeking to spur development, speculative investment by private individuals, etc. Ultimately, the technology failed to live up to its promise, and millions of dollars in investments evaporated almost overnight. Still, the road and its location evolved over the years and remains a vital transportation artery to points east.
The Oshkosh True Democrat ran an ad looking for subscriptions for the plank road on May 11, 1849. Harrison Reed, George Law, Charles Doty and Corn's Northrop were the commissioners. It was originally called the Neenah and Manitowoc Plank Road Company.
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