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     It was billed as the longest, most famous and best plank road ever built.  It began in Ste. Genevieve, ran to Iron Mountain and on to Pilot Knob.  But Farmington took advantage of its location and became a hub of development and shipping for the teamsters moving along the road.

    Built during the 1850s, the road had reached from Ste. Genevieve to Farmington by 1853.  It continued to Iron Mountain and finished late in 1855. 

     At a cost of $200,000 the r42 miles of wood-surfaced highway served as a link between area iron mines and the supply and shipping links needed by those mines.

    There were five too gates along the route, two of them between Farmington and Doe Run.  A journey along the road would cost a man with a wagon of supplies 25 cents for the round trip.  His counterpart on a horse would be charged only 10 cents at the gates.

   Despite the state officials’ warnings that gravel roads were better and smoother, use of the plank road continued because people dreamed of traveling over mud-free roads.

    Construction of the road was simple, but top engineers of the time were employed to develop plans for the road.   The builder, a corporation formed in Jefferson City on Feb. 7, 1851, wanted to make sure every thing was right because it saw the route between the iron mines and the Mississippi River at Ste. Genevieve as a vital link for the future.

    The road was built with planks 8 feet long and 2 inches thick.

    The road was constructed in a series of 8-foot sections with planks to tie them together.  Local saw mills along the road cut the timber that was hauled to the construction sites.

    Being only 8 feet wide the road allowed only one-way traffic for the three-ox teams that carried massive loads of iron ore.  Westbound traffic had the right-of-way.  Teams going east had to wait at one of the cutoffs to allow westbound traffic to pass.  A round trip on the road took five days.  Many of the teamsters made the round trip each week.  As one put it, “we didn’t get rich but we did make a living.”

    John Hunt, who often used the road between Farmington and Doe Run, learned what he later described as a most valuable lesson.

    “I drove the road a lot at night,” Hunt later told a historian.  “I got into the habit of passing the toll gate and just calling out my name.”

    The gatekeepers would then charge the bill to Hunt.  At the end of the month he would settle with them, Hunt said.

     Other teamsters learned his trick and would pass through at night and call out, “The team of John Hunt.”  After Hunt got his bill, at the end of the month he paid cash on each trip. 

            The use of toll gates along the road began declining as more roads opened.   But the part of the toll road through St. Francois County continued to operate under a firm called the St. Francois County Gravel Road Co.

   In 1902 St. Francois County purchased the road and made it a toll-free part of the county system.

    Parts of the old Road may still be seen.  One marker is along Route 32 between Farmington and Ste. Genevieve.  Part of Route 32 runs along the old plank road and there are other sections or roads that use part of the old right of way.

   While its history was short and it was not what the builders had hoped, the plank road provided a vital link between supplier and miner.  It also provided an important basis for growth in Farmington in the 1850s.

The Daily Journal, Flat River, Mo., Monday, March 19, 1979/Transcribed by Jeanne Hunt Nassaney.

Note:  For further articles on the Old Plank Road, please see the Highways & By-Ways section of our web site.

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