"Look well to your seat, 'tis like- taking an airing/On a corduroy road, and that out of repairing."
James Russell Lowell, "A Fable for Critics"
Nicknamed corduroy roads, log-laid roads consist of whole logs, or logs split down the middle, that are laid across the roadway, one tightly against the next, to create a resistant road surface over swampy or muddy land. Sand is used to cover the surface and reduce the discomfort of traveling over the corduroy-like surface.
Despite enabling easier travel through once inaccessible places, corduroy roads could be dangerous for the user. In the best of conditions the ride was already bumpy and uncomfortable, but if rain washed away the sandy cover or logs became loose or wet, the surface became highly hazardous to horses and any vehicles that were attached to them. The first known log-laid road was constructed in 4000 B.C.E. Evidence of corduroy roads, made from oak planks covering marshy areas, has been found in Glastonbury, England, dating backto 3800 B.C.E.
Over the centuries log-laid roads have mainly been replaced by plank roads, using flat boards instead of logs to give a smoother journey. However, both the Nazi and Soviet forces created them on the Eastern Front in World War II. More recently, corduroy roads have lost their original function and become the foundations for other surfaces after decaying very slowly in anaerobic soils. In the United States, roads such as the Alaska Highway that were built in the early twentieth century retain their log-laid foundations.
