The Multifoote Paving Contraption
Although I grew up with mostly graveled road, I take paved sidewalks and streets and roads for granted. Until I sifted through my mother’s old photos, I didn’t think about the highway through my hometown of Dexter, Iowa, before it was paved in 1929.
Since it was the first time White Pole Road (also at one time called The Great White Way, and later Highway 6, now numbered 925) was paved, and my mother’s grandfather, Sherd Goff, was part of the process, the story became Chapter 11 in Leora’s Dexter Stories.
White Pole Road being paved for the first time, 1929, in front of the home of M.S. and Laura Goff, Dexter, Iowa.I was certainly struck by an old photo of that paving contraption, a “modern Foote 5A Traction Paving Mixer.”
Two Foote brothers, Chester and Charles, were concrete contractors in NY, with a knack for inventing things. In 1896 they built their own mixer, an improvement over existing designs. In two more years, they had built a workshop and perfected a gas-powered mixer.
In 1903, the brothers founded the Foote Manufacturing Co. and developed the first mixer designed specifically for paving, the No. 3 Continuous Mixer. Their greatest innovation came in 1918 when they perfected the use of crawlers rather than steel wheels. That paver was dubbed the Multifoote and advertised as “The Paving Tank.” I believe one of these contraptions paved at least part of Iowa’s White Pole Road for the first time in 1929.
Historical Construction Equipment Association photo: The earliest dry batch pavers were simple mixers like this Foote 5A Traction Paving Mixer, working on the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway on Long Island. It receives dry materials at one end of its chassis.
It’s harder to make out the paving machine in the second photo taken in 1929. Mom’s brother, Dale Wilson, is sitting on the sidewalk in front of their grandparents’ home, which still stands in Dexter. Across the road in the old photo was a field with trees and a large billboard. Today, it’s Dexter’s city park.
The area today. The words in the center say White Pole Road, which was paved the first time in 1929. The old photos are taken from the south side of the street, where Dale Wilson is sitting. The brown roof was Sherd and Laura Goff’s house. (The Wilson family lived in a little house south of there.) Across White Pole Road to the north is the Dexter City Park. There’s a large billboard in a pasture in the old photos.
The Dexter Park today. The plaque to the right includes the names of war casualties, including Dale, Daniel, and Junior Wilson among the WWII losses.
