Like it or not, winter is approaching in the Northern Hemisphere and leaving in the Southern. Since we are somewhere in between, let’s talk snow!
A co-worker recently gave me these pictures. His late father had been a maintenance supervisor for the state highway department for many years. Based upon the pickup, I’m guessing he took these pictures sometime in the late 1950’s. Both of these were taken here around the state capital, with the picture below taken on the Missouri River bridge.
Years ago, when I lived 100 miles northeast of Jefferson City, I lived across the street from a gentleman who also worked for the state highway department; also a maintenance supervisor, he retired in 1992 with nearly forty years of service. He once told me a story about when he first started working there in the early 1950’s.
“Jason, you know what salt spreaders looked like? Me. We had three people per truck; whoever was the most sober drove while the other two scooped salt. I quit drinking during the winter because it got damn cold working in the back of that truck all night.” While there is undoubtedly some exaggeration in his statement, times have certainly changed in the last sixty years.
This appears to be two different men in the back. Let’s hope they were swapping off on spreading duties. Click on the pictures for more detail.
Looks like the bridge where George Bailey met Clarence.
As simple as the engineering is in a basic spreader device, it is surprising that something that could be put in the bed or towed wasn’t used. This method is a lot of paid labor, and looks a bit risky.
At least it looks like they’re going nice and slow, and I don’t see other traffic.
True Missouri snow story: I was once hurrying North along I55, trying to catch a flight home from St. Louis. A massive snowstorm was sweeping the northeast and it was already snowing, and since the guys pictured above had retired by then there was no equipment out.
All was fine until we came to an overpass which had frozen, and a couple of cars had spun well off the road. Traffic slowed to 40, but within a few minutes was back up to 70, and when we came to the next overpass sure enough another couple of cars were off the road. It was that way all the way to the airport.
My flight was cancelled, but I wound up catching the last flight out, to Chicago where I found 10,000 people camped out at the airport. I got a suite at the Hilton, which was the last room available in the area, and made it home the next morning..
Your story makes me glad I don’t travel much as part of my job.
Being from St. Louis, during snow storms, in case the plows didn’t make it out yet, the city (and some surrounding communities) had large wooden boxes strategically placed at, on or near hilly areas that contained salt, so in case you got stuck and didn’t bring or install your chains, you could avail yourself of some salt to get you rolling again. The boxes were yellow.
On a non-related note, I wish I could find an image of the old pre-interstate highway “bomb route” road signs placed on major city boulevards to direct you out of the city in event of a Russian nuclear attack. Yeah, right.
They were round, blue & white with an arrow pointing upward, similar to bus stop signs you see in old movies and cartoons.
“Duck & Cover”!
I remember Kindergarten and First Grade doing “duck n’ cover” drills.
I also fondly remember U.S. 54 rolling through Jeff City – and that bridge.
I don’t remember in my ventures in Mid-West/Eastern/Ontario salt/snow country seeing men in back of trucks spreading road salt, but I do remember Government of Guam (GovGuam) filling in potholes with guys in back of a Toyota truck dumping ground asphalt into the (many) potholes that plagued Guam roads (made mostly out of crushed coral). They did this while the truck was in motion (slow, of course). Ca. 1990.
The good old days!
Hey, this looks like high-tech stuff, what with that Tarco Scotchman spreading machine in the back of the truck. I will bet that 20 years earlier and they used a regular old Irishman (albeit one with a Union card) standing on the tailgate throwing the salt barehanded.
Looks like a nasty job, even with the machine.
I would have hoped that old Jimmy pickup got a periodic washing when the weather was above freezing . . . otherwise, the whole ass-end of that truck probably rotted away after five years. Oak bed, I’m sure. JP – you are most likely spot on about the guy in the back of the truck with a shovel spreading salt/sand – my Step Grandfather would’ve been that guy in the early 1930s. . . . .
My grandfather was in charge of the street department for our small town and that was the way they did it as well; couple of guys in the back of a pickup throwing salt out with shovels. This was in Kentucky so not that much bad weather to deal with but it would be a rare winter without at least one or two storms. I’m sure the city did not own any type of snowplow. The county probably had one to keep the main highways clear. If there was a heavy snow the secondary roads might be impassable for weeks, after one storm in the late 70’s my brother’s family had to stay with his inlaws in town for a couple of weeks because they literally could not get to their house. Even today a minor snowstorm will paralyze the region because they just don’t have much snow removal equipment.
Great pictures. I spent a fair number of years in the highway maintenance industry here in BC, both before and after privatized maintenance was brought in in ’87. There were a few of these exact Scotchman sanders around even then, although they were not used in this manner any longer. Made good seed spreaders though. Probably still a few in use. The old timers all had lots of stories about spreading sand and salt from the back of trucks, usually heard when one of the “kids” on the crew was beefing about some minor problem with a fancy new unit that does this job with a computer controlled hydraulic system.
Salt spreader bodies generally require a complete sandblast/paint/overhaul every 3 seasons and trucks generally rot out before they wear out, but plows purchased in the 1950s were still in common use 40 years later. You don’t even want to know what all that salt does to a through truss bridge like the one in the second picture. Rust never sleeps….
This completely made me smile. First of all, I love this website. Literally daily I am checking it out, eager to see what is offered for the day. But I never in a million years would have expected to see that familiar sight of the U.S. 54 bridge in Jefferson City on here. I grew up in Jefferson City, and live in St. Louis now. I love this website, keep up the fantastic work! I just wanted to put my two-cents in and say that with that one fleeting sight of that old bridge, you warmed my heart a little. And I am happy to report, that bridge is still standing, used, and in great shape. It carries the westbound lanes of 54 across the Missouri river. A twin bridge was built ca. 1992 to carry the eastbound lanes.
Thank you.
Stay tuned; you may be seeing some more current pictures with Jefferson City backdrops in the near future. I have also spotted about half my CC material here in Jeff.
Excellent!
What a pleasant breath of fresh air this week. I like this kind of stuff. Thanks!