Warp Speed.

Back before the Civil War, cattle had to get used to a new sound. Every day a four-horse stagecoach ran the fertile Missouri river bottoms, clattering along a bit of modern technology for the time: an oak plank road. This marker is all that remains of one of several plank roads that offered a different ride for buggies and stagecoaches. The marker sits between Glasgow and Huntsville. The road, built in 1854, stretched twenty six miles from Glasgow to Huntsville, and cost $84,000 to build, using planks measuring three inches thick and fourteen feet wide, with six inch by eight inch stringers. The toll was 1.5 cents per mile. The ride was a bit less bumpy than bare ground, but loud as a ratchet. The planks needed constant repair, warping and rotting in the humid Missouri weather. This road was replaced with gravel in 1860.

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