March 29, 2024

Mysterious Markers on Woodley Road

Posted on June 2, 2015 by in Features

by Tim Lennox; photos by Tim Lennox, Bob Corley

June2015RoadMarker3W

Look closely as you drive in the 2000 block of Woodley Road in Montgomery, and you’ll notice stone markers sticking up in thefront yards of several homes. Mike Martin and his wife have lived in one of those houses for thirty years. He’s gotten used to mowing around the stone, thinking now and then of digging it up to make life easier. But what are they, and what do the numbers on them mean?

“I don’t know what they mean at all,” says Martin, “…24 plus 46, whatever it is, I don’t know what that means. I don’t have a clue!”

Asked if he knew there were other markers in the neighborhood Martin said, “No I did not, till I talked to you.”      

June2015RoadMarker2WI thought they were mile markers when I first saw them and considered writing this story.     

The idea to mark the distances along roads started in the Roman Era. I thought the stones along Woodley Road might date to the building of the Montgomery road. But when I called Greg Spies, with the state Association of Surveyors, his simple question killed my theory.

“Are they a mile apart?” he asked.     

Well, no. In fact there are only five visible in front yards on the road, and the numbers don’t seem to bear any relation to miles to or from…anything. I sent him the first photos I took of one of the stones with the numbers all but worn off.    

He wrote back, explaining that the markers indicate the start and finish of segments of a road.

“I think they are roadway markers and & the numbers stamped on them are roadway station numbers. The close-up shows what looks like 00 and a station on a roadway is always designated as 100+00, meaning, in this example, 10,000 feet from the beginning of the roadway segment.”     

Spies suggested I talk with Montgomery County Engineer George Speake, P.E., P.L.S, and he confirmed it.

Mike Martin and the concrete obelisk he's mowed around for decades.

Mike Martin and the concrete obelisk he’s mowed around for decades.

“These are very old concrete right-of-way markers. They are most valuable to surveyors when and if it becomes necessary to establish the road right-of-way lines on the ground, “ Speake said. “Normally after the road is constructed, concrete right-of-way markers are placed on the right-of-way lines for future reference and to identify location of the road right-of- way. “

According to Speake, these markers are usually (but not always) placed at beginning and ends of highway curves and/or where a right-of-way line changes direction, such as corners.

“In residential subdivisions,” he said, “typically (but not always) iron pins are placed flush with the ground at all lot corners by which right-of-way lines can be re-established as needed.”

And can Mr. Martin dig up the one in his front yard?

“As permanent as they look, unfortunately, many of these type monuments end up getting destroyed by heavy equipment,” Speake said.    

State or County highway workers will use the markers the next time they pave Woodley Road, and without the stone guide, Martin might find the asphalt running across his front lawn rather than along it.

Martin says he is willing to keep pulling out the weed-eater to cut the grass around the odd stone pillar he has looked at for so long. He says he never even notices it anymore.

“I did ask somebody one time — I don’t remember who it was — what is this thing and can I get rid of it, because it is a pain to mow around. And whoever it was, I am sure he was not an authority on anything, said, ‘Oh no, you can’t move that’ so it has never been touched. So I don’t know how deep it goes, maybe the pirates buried a treasure there and this is his marker.”

Sorry, Mike, the answer was less exciting, but at least the decades old mystery is now solved.

Tim Lennox is on Alabama News Network’s morning show on CBS 8 and ABC Montgomery from 5:00 till 7:00 a.m.

Tags:

Leave a Reply

Please fill the required box or you can’t comment at all. Please use kind words. Your e-mail address will not be published.

Gravatar is supported.

You can use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>