David Ward King - Invention of The King Road Drag

Invention of The King Road Drag

It was in 1896 that D. Ward King first dragged the road with an old frost-bitten pump stock and an oak post. The improvement in the dirt roads it worked was dramatic. Until then, the only way to firm up dirt roads had been to dump layers of stone on them and then press it in with a heavy roller to make a road surface resistant to turning into muck after every rain. This method was fairly effective, but it was also labor intensive and expensive. These stone-permeated roads were called "macadamized roads". These roads took their name from their Scotch inventor, John Loudon McAdam. Using his method, roads were covered with several layers of stone, starting with large ones and then reducing their size in each successive layer. The stones in the first level would be about the size of a human head. The stones in the next layer would be about the size of a fist. The final layer would be of stones of about the size of golf balls. It was grueling work to haul this heavy stone to the places needed, to unload it in the right places and then to spread it evenly over the road surface with only horse-drawn wagons and hand-held shovels and rakes. Further, in the days before powered stone crushers, there was the additional and very arduous task of smashing much bigger rocks down to the right size for use in the respective layers. This work came to be known as "making the big ones into the small ones." Men did it by hand by smashing large rocks with sledgehammers. In many states, convicts did this work and sometimes even built these macadamized roads by working on the roads themselves. When these convict crews worked directly on these roads, necessarily outside the walls of the prison, each man was typically chained to the next to prevent runaways. These convict road crews became the infamous "chain gangs" of that day. In the days of horse power, this method was just too time-consuming and expensive to be practical for widespread use.

The advantage of the King Road Drag was that it firmed up dirt roads by leaving a crown in the middle, which caused rain water to just run off, keeping the road dry and firm. Its crowning virtue was that, unlike pressing stone into the mud road surface, it was very quick and very inexpensive. The method quickly caught on. Draft horses, relieved of the need to drag farm wagons through mire, were able to haul a lot more farm produce to railroad sidings for transport by the railroad to distant markets. So, in 1903, Ward was employed by the Chicago and North Western Transportation Company to promote its "Good Roads Campaign." During 1904 and 1905 the railroad ran "Good Road" trains over their lines in Iowa. Ward rode these trains to instruct people along the lines on the construction and use of his invention. According to his promotional brochure, the railroad hauled him around in a "private car" and paid him a "handsome salary". His brochure, while not naming them, stated that "four important railroads" had done that. However, the enthusiasm of the railroad for improved roads quickly cooled when their ridership for short trips began to drop off dramatically. With improved local roads, people started travelling locally on their own bicycles (which were the craze of the day) and their own newly acquired automobiles. However, D. Ward King and his "Good Roads" program were already on their way, and the end of railroad support did little to stop it.