County Highways01

Waupaca County Post

February 2, 2006

After Nearly a Century, County Highways Have Come a Long Way

By Robert Cloud, Post Editor

Visitors to an open house at the Waupaca County Highway Department will be able to see first-hand some of the personnel, equipment and operations involved in maintaining the county’s roads.

The open house is slated from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 15, at the highway office, 515 E. Fulton St., Waupaca. Staff will give guided tours of the facility every hour on the hour during the open house. There will also be historical displays of photos and maps.

“A lot of tough decisions get made here,” according to Waupaca County Highway Commissioner Dean Steingraber. “The open house will give visitors an opportunity to see how the Highway Commission makes decisions on which roads to repair. We meet every two weeks and it’s an open meeting. The public can come to the meetings and bring their concerns forward.”

The highway department’s historical display includes a Waupaca County map from 1874, when railroad corridors, rather than roads, were the predominate form of transportation. The map shows few roads in rural areas, and no county trunks or state highways are marked on the map.

Another map, from 1936, shows a network of county highways similar to what can be found today. However, U.S. Highway 10 was only two lanes wide and wound its way through the business sections of Fremont, Weyauwega and Waupaca.

What is now State Highway 110 between Symco and Marion used to be County Trunk F. And the road that is currently County F used to be a town road from Weyauwega to Gill’s Landing.

Steingraber said the state Department of Transportation and the county have been discussing possibly transferring the stretch of State 110 between Symco and Marion back to the county’s jurisdiction

An old photo, dating from 1913, shows Chady’s Corner in Farmington, now known as the intersection of County Trunk QQ and State Highway 54. There are trees as far as the eye can see and both roads seem little more than narrow dirt paths.

Another photo on display shows a picket line with a sign reading, “We’re not dead. We’re on strike.”

The oldest annual report in the highway department’s archives dates back to 1922. By that time, the county highway department was about a decade old and John Huffcutt was the highway commissioner He had been preceded in the office by Charles J. Knutson, who started in 1912.

Huffcutt’s annual report indicates that the county spent a total of $316,732 on road construction. The department graded 223.5 miles of road and surfaced another 22 miles of road with gravel. The county spent $73,416 to build a bridge in the village of Fremont.

The value of county highway equipment totaled $41,355, which included $500 for a 10-ton steam roller.

By 1929, total highway maintenance and construction costs had risen to $657,000, which included 53 miles of grading and nearly 57 miles of gravel surfacing. The county spent $32,577 on new equipment, $82,514 on bonds and interest and $26,830 on snow removal for the year. The labor costs for snow removal in 1929 was just over $9,000.

A penciled memo from 1939, titled “Emergency Snow Removal,” indicates that during four weeks in January the county hired up to 90 men and spent about $6,800 to remove snow. The weekly salaries ranged from less than $5 to about $24.

Today, the county spends a total of $13.5 million annually for maintaining and sometimes rebuilding more than 1,200 miles of state, county and municipal highways. A total of 77 people are currently employed in the highway department.

According to the 2004 annual report, the county highway department’s nearly 500 pieces of equipment were worth about $5 million. That year, the county spent about $850,000 on new equipment. Although snowplowing is no longer listed as a separate item on financial reports, winter highway maintenance in 2004 cost more than $500,000.

The tour of the Waupaca facility will include a stop at accounting where the staff record daily transactions for the labor, equipment and materials used on each county project or work performed for 22 towns, six villages, six cities, eight school districts and seven other county departments.

Visitors will also see the parts room, where thousands of parts for the department’s equipment are stored.

“The main reason we’re here is to plow snow,” Steingraber said. “If something breaks down during a snowstorm, we can’t wait a day for a part to come in.”

The highway department uses a computerized inventory system that categorizes all the parts and materials and gives s specific location, such as a shelf or a shed, where the part can be found.

Steingraber said the department can also make its own hydraulic and water hoses.

In the sign ship, there is an inventory of state and county highway signs, some of which are made here, while others are ordered from suppliers.

John Flinn, the supervisor of the sign shop, pulls out one of the high-intensity stop signs and shows how it is actually a thin honeycomb filled with tiny glass beads that reflect light.

“You’d have to be blind not to see this sign,” notes Bruce Golding, a sign shop employee.

A key piece of equipment for the county is a truck equipped with a power auger and hydraulic platform that allows the sign shop staff to dig a hole and install a sign even when the ground is frozen.

The highway department built its Waupaca facility in 1936. Since then, it has expanded the facility to include more space for storage, the sign shop, a service bay, a fabrication shop, a tire bay, a wash bay and the parts room. The building has also been modernized, such as insulating the roof, adding an air exchange, new lighting and converting the boilers from coal to fuel oil, then to natural gas.

The administrative offices, which are located across the street from the shops, were built in 1965. In 1971, the highway department opened a shop in Larrabee, then another shop in New London in 1971. In 1993, the county closed two highway shops in Iola and Manawa and consolidated their operations into a new shop in Helvetia.

The county also operates a gravel pit and a hot mix plant.

The highway department’s main repair shop is located in the original 1936 building. Five mechanics work there, repairing everything from pickups to bulldozers. When they are not repairing equipment, they are preparing equipment for the upcoming season.

The highway department is also responsible for maintaining the Waupaca Sheriff’s Department’s squad cars. This section of the facility was built in 1983 and replaced an old blacksmith shop.

In another section, the county has a metal fabrication shop where structural repairs are done on the vehicles.

“Our whole focus here is to be self-sufficient so we can take care of our own equipment in an emergency,” Steingraber said. “Very little work is sent out for repair.” The highway department employs six mechanics, one service mechanic and one metal fabricator.

Fifty-five employees are responsible for plowing the snow. Each snowplow operator has his or her own truck and route.

Twelve of the operators plow the state highway system. There are a total of 199 miles of state highway, but when one counts all the lanes, they must plow more than 500 miles of roadway. They come in as early as 2 a.m. when there is a storm.

The county has 13 operators who plow the 345-mile, two-lane county highway system for a total of 690 lane miles. They arrive for work at 4 a.m. in response to a snowstorm.

Thirty operators handle the 1,387 lane miles of municipal roadways and begin work at 6 a.m.

“We’re hoping to educate the public about what we do here and answer any questions about what we do here and why we have the equipment that we do,” Steingraber said.