I live near Mariaville, on Mariaville Scotch Church Road. At least that's my 911 address, however the road is actually New York State Route 160. Obviously whoever named it Mariaville Scotch Church Road, woke up in the morning with a hangover and was mad at the entire world and particularly the people who lived on Route 160.

Back when I first came to Mariaville, over 50 years ago, this road was often referred to as the "Cotton Road". It is an interesting story. Back during the great Depression of the '30s, the government paid the farmers to remove their stone wall fences and bring the stone out next to the road. This made bigger fields for the farmers so they could use those new fangled devices called tractors. After all it took about a half an acre to turn a tractor around back then. The stones were laid down as a foundation for the road. On top of that was put a layer of cotton "canvas". Actually it was a very soft and thick material. And one lady tells me of riding her bicycle on it and leaving deep tracks in the cotton material. Can you imagine that? Children misbehaving back then. So much as to ride their bicycle on a partially constructed road. On top of the cotton material was put the paving.

Some people claimed that the cotton material was used only to keep the cotton mills in the South busy. But such was not actually the case. Paving back then was McAdam. It was made by putting down a layer of hot asphalt, a layer of sand, and another layer of hot asphalt and so on until the required depth of the paving was achieved. So we can actually see that the cotton cloth was indeed a barrier to prevent the asphalt from running down into the stone. Without it, it would've taken half of the asphalt in the state of Texas to make just one road.

We must admit, that these old-timers were indeed far sighted. It not only gave the farmers bigger fields to more efficiently operate their farms, but also gave us an excellent infrastructure which is with us yet today.

Bill Massoth