THE ANSWER TO LAST WEEK’S MYSTERY
While the concrete post with its metal tag in the sidewalk in front of Linden City Hall may not be the black monolith of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” it has its own bit of mystery all the same.
It can be described better by telling what it is not. It is not a benchmark survey monument or geodetic device as might be used by surveyors. It is not a political or government boundary line marker.
It is, rather, a post monument placed by those building the road to mark the special cooperative relation of the federal government and states in road construction. It marks the beginning of a road or road improvement funded by the federal government and part of the Federal Highway Aid project.
To better understand, note this marker in Linden has a metal plaque in the shape of a federal shield. It’s official. The first abbreviation is F.A.P. which stands for “Federal Aid Primary” meaning this is one of the nation’s primary roads being built by the state with federal funding. The year of the marker’s placement is 1928.
Here is what the shield is describing. The U.S. FederalAid Highway Program began in 1916 and grew in importance with the passage of Federal-Aid Highway Acts of 1944 and 1956.
The program included three parts or systems. First was the Interstate Highway System. Second was a Primary Highway System and third was a Secondary
Highway System.
The primary system, which is the concern of this marker, connected main highways selected by each state’s highway department with the routes of the Interstate
Highway System, including such urban extensions as loops, belt highways and spurs.
The Federal-Aid Secondary system involved feeder routes such as farm-to-market roads, rural mail and school bus routes, county and township roads and others.
Charles Snowden of Linden remembers these details this about the monument.
“It’s a highway plaque that was at Red Hill,” Snowden called to say. “It was placed there after that road from Old
Boston to Jefferson through Red Hill was being improved with gravel. Gravel was a big deal at the time when roads would be constructed locally, often by land-owners using whatever materials they had or just dirt..
“I believe the arrow on the plaque is pointing towards Linden and indicating the distance of that section is 8.25 miles. Perhaps each section of the road had its Federal Highway Aid Project marker. The dates and distances are provided, and the indication is that the project was built with FAP funds.”
What is not remembered is just how, when and why the monument came to be moved to Linden and placed in front of the bank and across the street from the courthouse.
The decision could possibly have been made by the builders of the highway to place the marker for more public appreciation of the program. Linden’s central location and nearness to the county courthouse would have been important. If one looks just across the street, there is a smaller stone column marker also with a shield at the edge of the courthouse property.
In this county, there is another F.A.P. monument is located east of Bloomburg where Farm to Market 249 meets the Arkansas Road 155. These two are the only F.A.P. markers known in Cass County
Perhaps a reader of Regional News can contact Neil Abeles at corneil11@aol.com to contribute a better answer to this Where Is It? question or indicate where a better answer might be found.