“What this country needs is a good 5 cent cigar.” –Thomas R. Marshall

What this country needs today is self-repairing pavement. The Dutch are experimenting with a stretch of asphalt laced with a matrix of steel wool fibers. When a massive magnet passes by, the metal contracts, closing the cracks.

The turkey dressing I was served in the Army would have made an excellent crack patch but the recipe was classified!

Humans have been building roads to transport food and attack enemies for more than 10,000 years. Paved roads were built by the Mesopotamians around 3,000 B.C. Made of molded bricks, they were held together by bitumen, tar, the same binder used in many paving materials today.

Roman roads were made of rock and gravel layers recessed into the ground for stability.

First built by Britons in the 1700s, some gravel highways relied on tolls for financing, a precursor of today’s turnpikes. Pebbles and cobbles were often used for road surfaces but John McAdam created the “Macadam” road, which was a combination of round and angular stones pressed firm – kinder to carriage wheels but still pretty shifty.

In the 1870s, American engineers created asphalt using a formula still in use today. Soil cement, an early form of paving material, was replaced by concrete, a mixture of Portland cement, sand and limestone rock, longer lasting for roadways that bear heavy weight.

America’s roads have evolved from Indian paths called traces to the current interstate system begun by President Eisenhower in 1956.