Commissioners peruse old road documents

By Colin Willard, Staff Writer
Posted 2/1/23

VIENNA — At the Jan. 19 meeting of the Maries County Commission, the commissioners read through old road documents found in the commission room safe.

The documents were typewritten on old, …

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Commissioners peruse old road documents

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VIENNA — At the Jan. 19 meeting of the Maries County Commission, the commissioners read through old road documents found in the commission room safe.

The documents were typewritten on old, yellowed paper. Many of the dates were from the 1930s and 1940s, but the papers themselves were not that old. They had the letterhead of former County Clerk Joe Clay Crum, who served from 1975 to 1995. Presiding Commissioner Victor Stratman said Crum probably typed the documents from old handwritten records.

Western District Commissioner Ed Fagre said the commissioners had been looking through the documents to find information about Maries County Road 306 and the Fish Hollow Access to the Gasconade River. The area is the subject of a lawsuit that names the commissioners.

Although they had not found much about Fish Hollow, the commissioners took interest in some other old county projects detailed in the documents. Eastern District Commissioner Doug Drewel said most of the documents covered road damage.

One of the documents the commissioners read through talked about the bridge built in 1912 that used to be over the area of the Gasconade River near Highway 42 known as Indian Ford.

“They were contracted to put an approach going to the bridge and pour some concrete around the pier: 32 feet long, nine feet wide and six feet high,” Drewel said. “And a steel handrail. There must have been a walkway there.”

“I don’t remember that, but I remember the bridge being there,” Stratman said. “The approaches were all over on that one. When the river got up, it just went across. The flooding wasn’t a problem because the water wouldn’t go.”

Drewel said the bill, dated Nov. 30, 1912, said that the materials cost about $2,200. The amount may seem small, but according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) earliest consumer price index data from 1913, that value is equal to about $65,000 in today’s money.

Drewel asked if there had been two or three bridges at Indian Ford. Stratman said he thought it was two. Drewel said that the original bid to build the bridge in 1913 was $19,150, which BLS data says would be equal to nearly $580,000 today.

“They rejected the bid because it was too high,” he said. “They ended up bidding the bridge out for $12,980.”

At that rate, the bridge would have cost about $393,000 in today’s value. Drewel said a company from Kansas built the bridge.

Like building materials, the land also seemed cheaper back then.

“There was another road here that washed out,” Drewel said. “So they ended up buying it from the landowner. (It was) 30 feet wide, 50 yards in length (for) $20.”

“That makes you wonder if it was the actual value, or if the person thought that would be the value for them,” Stratman said.

That $20 would be worth about $600 today.

Drewel asked County Clerk Rhonda Rodgers what she planned to do with the documents. She said she would probably file them away with road petitions.

“You could sit there and read those papers all day long,” Drewel said. “There’s all kinds of good stuff in there.”

GVEZ board

In other business, the commissioners reappointed Kelly Barnhart to represent Maries County on the Gasconade Valley Enterprise Zone (GVEZ) board. Community leaders from Maries, Osage and Gasconade counties serve on the GVEZ board to promote and help the expansion of new or expanding businesses in the area.

Shredding

The commissioners discussed getting a commercial shredder rather than continuing to pay for shredding services. Stratman asked if the county could purchase a large shredder to dispose of old documents.

Rodgers said the county used to have a small office shredder, but they wear out too quickly for the amount of use they would get at the courthouse.

The county uses a company that brings a truck to the courthouse to shred papers every two weeks. Last year, the county paid about $3,800 for shredding service. The cost covers three separate accounts for the court, sheriff’s office and other offices around the courthouse.

A large shredder that would meet the county’s needs would cost more than $19,000.

Deputy County Clerk Renee Kottwitz said that the sheriff’s office had recently started going through boxes of old documents that it no longer needed to keep. There were about 70 banker boxes filled with documents dating back decades.

“That stuff’s as old as the ghosts upstairs,” Drewel joked.

Because the county’s shredding contract has limits on how many boxes can be shred at a time, shredding the documents would come at an additional cost. Stratman estimated it would cost about $2,200 for the extra shredding.

“But it would be a one-time hit then done,” he said. “It’s a lot better than buying a $10,000 shredder. Let’s go ahead and do it, and get it cleaned out.”

“It’ll be money well-spent,” Fagre said.