State

North Carolina’s Biggest Job The» Blue» Itidge. historic* barrier to travel, is being pierced by a 55-mile-per-hour .super-highway which sets newr rules in road building. Bulldozers and dynamite, and men with big ideas, at last arc humbling the majestic Blue Ridge. They're slicing through the hoary mountain barrier east of Asheville with a great new road that will be a miracle of modem engineering, per¬ haps America’s most modern-moun¬ tain boulevard. And when they've finished their road, with its gentle curves and grades, motorists can go up and down the mountain as fast as they want to — provided, of course, they don’t exceed the speed limit. And with safety, too. Trucks? They’ll be no bother. In the first place, they won’t have to crawl up the mountain at lantalizingly low- speed. They can roll along at a pretty good gait, just as the autoist can. But. more important, it’ll be a wide, double- tracked highway; and you can simply pull around slow-moving vehicles without danger of smacking head-on into an approaching vehicle. New vistas of scenery will be opened up on the big road, which will By ABIE UPCHURCH replace the present US 70 between Old Fort and Ridgecrest. Passcrsby can sec the falls of the Catawba River as they silver-streak down 500 feet of verdant mountainside. To the south, the mountain panorama will be far more expansive than the view' af¬ forded by the present US 70. The fine new road will open up. to tourists and Tarheels alike, scenic grandeur never seen except by those who take to mountain paths. Though it has reason to feel hum¬ ble now. while puny man levels its ridges and pushes their dirt into the valleys to make a flat road, the Blue Ridge should blossom out all over with pride when the ribbon is cut and the first motorists cruise along the highway awestruck by the grand new vistas opening before them. And the new road will be the pride and joy of the State Highway Depart¬ ment. Probably never before in eastern America has such a big earth-moving job been attempted. At no place over the mountain will the grade be more than six per cent, which means that the road will never rise more than six feet in each hundred feet of roadway. No curve will be over seven per cent, and there will be only one curve that extreme. Engineers from outside North Carolina already are coming to marvel, and in the years to come the job will attract road-builders from all corners of the world. The present US 70 corkscrewed up and over the mountain for eight miles between Old Fort and Ridgecrest. The new road will cut the distance about two miles. Dump-Cart Road Present US 70 was constructed in the early 1920’s. when equipment was limited mostly to horse-drawn wheelers, dump-wagons and drag¬ lines. Drilling for dynamite was done by hand hammers, one man turning the steel bit while another hammered it down. That method of construction required that the route be located in such a manner as to minimize grading. Therefore the road emerged as a sc¬ ries of sharp curves and switchbacks. On the new location, the most mod¬ ern carth-pioving machinery in the world is being used. Dynamite holes are drilled mechanically, and tons of explosive are used daily. At one point, they’re dynamiting a huge gash 100 feet deep through solid rock. Some of the cuts through the finger ridges are nearly 175 feet deep, and some of the earth fills across the ravines are al¬ most 200 feet high. Bulldozers simply push the crest off a ridge and ride across the new-piled dirt to renew the attack on the next ridge. It’s a big job! Over two miles of heavy metal pipe will be used in culverts beneath the road. There will be no bridge, except one at Old Fort. On the old road, the ( Continued on page 12) THE STATE. March 15. 1952 Left lo right: District Engineer, W. \V. Wyke, of Marion; Ninth Division Com¬ missioner, Joseph Graham, of Lincoln County; John Graham. Contractor from Cleveland, and Ninth Division Engineer, I.. B. Peck, of Shelby, shown dis¬ cussing construction problems at Smith’s Cap near Ridgecrest. — (Photo by J. E. Terrell). 6