WICKENBURG'S NEW SAFETY STRUCTURES

NORMAL opening Sunday, April 26, marked completion of two new units in safety highway construction as Wickenburg aided in the dedication of the new highway underpass, and a bridge across the Hassayampa.Within the city of Wickenburg, juncture point of highways 60, 70, 79, and 89, the underpass under the Santa Fe railroad tracks was dedicated as an additional unit in the state highway program to bring greater safety to state routes.

Construction of the underpass, at a cost of $90,000, eliminates the hazardous crossing which claimed four lives when a loaded tank truck crashed into an adobe house on Wickenburg's main street two years ago, after the truck brakes had failed on the long grade leading into the town from the west.

The Arizona highway department has eliminated the 'death' crossing by routing the eastward road into Wickenburg south of its former course so that it connects directly with the road leading across the new bridge of the Hassayampa. At a cost of $18,000 oil surfacing has just been completed for .4 of a mile westward from the underpass to the oid highway.

New Bridge and Underpass Give Great Safety To Intersectional Travelers

Traffic flow through the town is also simplified by the construction, which eliminates two turns for autos and trucks driving east and west.

The Phoenix-Tempe Stone company built the underpass, under the direction of George B. Shaffer, district engineer, R. A. Hoffman, bridge engineer, and Joe DeArozena, resident engineer.

With fourteen feet clearance and twen ty-four foot width, the underpass is ofsingle-barrel construction, illuminated automatically from a time clock device. Drainage is by gravity, eliminating the costs of pumps.

On the railroad structure ballast and ties were not used, reducing the dead weight. The rails are laid directly on oak strips bolted onto the over-slab.

The bridge across the Hassayampa is made with six 80-foot spans for an overall length of 480 feet, with the abutment on the east side carried on piles and the west end, at Wickenburg, anchored onto solid rock at a shallow depth.

The sum of $138,726.03 was spent in the construction, providing a clear roadway twenty-four feet wide with four-foot sidewalks on each side. The piers are set on timber piles driven into the river-bed, enclosed in sheet-metal cofferdams. An asphaltic wearing surface on the roadway is laid upon the concrete slab.

Red tufa blocks in the lighting pylons on the abutments are native, and werequarried from the hills near Wicken-burg.

MAY, 1937 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

F. D. Shufflebarger was contractor, with Shaffer, Hoffman and DeArozena, in charge for the highway department.

CONTRACTOR MAKES HIS WILL

"Judge," said the contractor to his lawyer, "doctor says that I got but a month to live. I want to make my will."

"Fix it so my overdraft in the bank goes to my wife she can explain it to them My equity in my automobile I want to go to my son. He will have to go to work then to meet the payments.... Give my unpaid bills to the bonding company; they took some awful chances on me and are entitled to something. That new-fangled machine on the job, I want the resident engineer to have. He made me buy it; maybe he can make it work My retained percentage give to the state. I never expect to get it anyway. My equip-ment, give to the junk man. He has had his eye on it for several years My keg, I want to go to my bootlegger, I hope it costs him as much to keep it wet as it has me. . I want you to handle the funeral for me, judge. Any under-taker will do, but I want these six material men for pallbearers. They have carried me so long they might as well finish the job."

STOP THIS SLAUGHTER

-From the United States News.

Two views of the new bridge across the Hassayampa, the upper showing the bridge from upstream and the lower a view looking east from the city of Wickenburg. The light pylons were made with red tufa quarried nearby.

In the first quarter of 1937, the toll of automobile accidents for the country at large has increased more than 25 per cent, but in Arizona, at the same time, deaths on the highways have decreased a like amount. Only continued cooperation of every driver can maintain this remarkable record.