The subject of street pavements is always a popular "gripe" when residents get together. Why can't pot holes be filled, and why are our streets so rough??
In 1900, Ira Merchant, city engineer from 1869 to 1883, gave an interview to the Pantagraph and reminisced about the building of the streets in Bloomington. "In 1869 there was not a foot of pavement or an inch of sewer or water pipes in the city." It was in 1869 that the first macadam road surface was laid. The pavement ran from the Illinois Central station on Grove Street to Main Street and from that point to the courthouse.
Action was taken to pave the street in 1869 because that year the streets of Bloomington were entirely impassable for six full weeks. ". . . (T)here was not a wagon to or from either depot and coffins were carried in the arms of men to the cemetery for wagons or buggies were mud bound." At the same time pavement was being put down on Chestnut Street from the Chicago and Alton depot to Center Street and from there to the square. A railroad line was laid along side the road, so that stone could be brought to the work site. At Center Street and Chestnut Dr. Dunn's property became a railroad right of way for making that corner.
In 1870, when T.J. Bunn was mayor, the first wooden block street was laid as an experiment on the north and west sides of the square. According to Ira Merchant, "There had been a little of everything tried in the way of wooden pavements, as well as stone and debris from the coal shaft, but until brick was tried, nothing was found that would stand the test." In 1877 Center Street between Washington and Jefferson was laid entirely in brick, but Mr. Merchant did not state whether this was the very first brick street in Bloomington, and certainly did not make so bold as to claim that it was the first brick street laid in the entire country.
It was in 1872, when Benjamin F. Funk was mayor, that the first sewer pipe was laid. It is very difficult for us to imagine a time before hidden sewer pipes, but it must have been a tremendous relief when the sewer was completed.
In 1874 the city water well was first dug, prior to that, each home had to have its own supply of water from wells and cisterns. The water mains, however, were not started until April of 1876. This water supply was discussed by Mr. Merchant only in relation to it being a supply for fire fighting and not as a supply of water to homes. The standpipe for the water system stood 200 feet tall, easily the tallest structure in Bloomington and according to Mr. Merchant was built on a cast base weighing 10 tons, with 25 feet of blue clay on top of it (20 feet by 20 feet on the surface). Like the pyramids or any other large engineered structure, I am having a hard time imagining how they could maneuver such a large and heavy piece of metal into such a massive hole at that time in history, but of course they had heavy equipment for lifting train cars after they wrecked or were derailed, so I am sure that the technology existed for this work to be done without major loss of life.
Such was the engineered life of Bloomington, as remembered by Mr. Merchant.
The photo is from June 29, 1938 and is of asphalting of Main Street. Credit: Pantagraph Negatives Collection, used by permission of McLean County Museum of History.