For a number of years the people of McCook have taken great pride in their brick streets. A few years ago, when the sidewalks downtown were redone it was even decided to put decorative brick inserts in the sidewalks at intervals on Norris Avenue in downtown McCook -- to further the idea of "The City on the Bricks."

In 1882 there were no brick streets in McCook. The new city was laid out with what at the time were considered very wide streets, including (what is now B St.) the highway through town. But all of the streets, naturally, were dirt -- maintained at irregular intervals with horse drawn machines. During the dry months dirt streets worked quite well for buggies and horse drawn dray vehicles, but it was slow going during the rainy season and when the frost went out of the ground in the spring. What made the situation bearable was the fact was that there was really not a lot of traffic on the streets and the highways in the early days. After the ox cart days, freight came into the city by rail. Horses, buggies, and wagons were present, but in truth most people in town did not have a regular access to a buggy, so most folks walked to get to their destinations.

After Henry Ford hit his stride and his mass production of the automobile made car ownership possible for the average family, things began to change. All McCook streets, and especially B Street, were subject to "dust, mud, and puddles de-pending on the whims of nature."

Edgar Frank and R. J. Stevens remembered meeting for the first time at the intersection of B St. and Norris Ave., when a rainstorm caused the "highway" to become a sea of mud. The two were hopelessly mired, sitting side by side in their automobiles, one going west, the other going east -- visiting for an hour till teams of horses could pull them to drier ground.

For much of the year rain was less a problem than was dust. Carriages and wagon traffic created some dust to be sure, but it could be tolerated. After automobiles appeared, dust, combined with McCook's winds, created a real problem. The speed limit on B Street was 12 miles per hour and water wagons made regular passes sprinkling the road in dry weather, both efforts to keep the dust down.

Merchants complained, customers complained, mot-orists complained. After World War I things came to a head.

In 1919, Paving District No. 1 was formed to pave B Street from West Third to East 6th Street and Norris Avenue from the depot to the courthouse -- with bricks. But -- as is always the case in McCook it seems -- the project was not without controversy.

The "Citizens Party" contended that the project was needed to put Veterans, coming back from the war, to work. The "Home and Labor Party" felt that the project was unnecessary. "They asked, "Why adorn a standpipe with silk petticoats?"

The Citizens Party won. A contractor named Brodie was awarded the job. He brought in seven or eight black men to install the bricks. (It is not known whether or not the seven or eight black bricklayers were Veterans.) The project immediately became a great entertainment attraction for the whole community. Ray Search remembered racing other boys down Norris Avenue at great speed on his bike, on the concrete undercoating before the bricks were put into place.

Everyone was greatly impressed with the speed that the black men laid the bricks -- hour after hour, with bricks seeming to fly into place. All together, more than a million bricks were laid, at a cost of some $140,000.

At the time McCook had its own brickyard, but it was decided not to use the local bricks. McCook bricks were felt to be too "soft" for paving bricks, and an order for a million bricks was too great a project for the local brickyard.

It was said at the time that McCook's street bricks would last for at least 25 years. Some said they would last forever. Never-the-less, in just over 40 years, in 1960, plans were being made to replace the brick streets with up-to-date concrete paved streets.

The McCook City Council entered into an agreement with the Nebraska Depart-ment of Roads and the Federal Highway Depart-ment, each entity sharing the expense of improving the approaches to McCook, and widening B Street through the heart of town. Bricks had no place in the plans.

On the east the highway was to be straightened and widened to four lanes. On the west the highway was moved north of the Rominoff Packing plant, to eliminate the railroad siding hazard. Parking would be eliminated along B. St., and the highway expanded to four lanes, cutting down the width of the sidewalks from 9' to 7'.

A group called the "Friends of B Street" was formed, headed by John T. Harris, which strongly resisted the elimination of parking and the reduction of the sidewalks. Discussions were heated. In 1962, Police Chief Glenn Soss and Sheriff Jim Short were on hand to keep order when some 200 citizens gathered at the auditorium to debate the B Street issue.

Harris accused the council of selling out to the state, and contended that Mayor Karrer betrayed the people by allowing a council vote without first giving public notice. Said Harris, "This is the worst thing to happen to McCook since the 1935 flood."

Law suits were initiated. The Red Willow County District Court found that the no parking contract was illegal. However, in 1965 the Nebraska Supreme Court reversed the Red Willow Court and gave its blessing to the parking ban on B Street.

Animosity gradually cooled, and in 1969 Harris chalked up a small victory when he thanked the council for its part in getting medians eliminated from the downtown paving project.

In 1969 the highway project was almost scuttled when a federal ruling on the "encroachment of right of way" demanded that 13 canopies and 22 signs be removed along B Street in the interest of safety. Again, the merchants gave in to the inevitable dictates of the federal government.

In 1970, the Highway 6 & 34/83 project along B. St. was finally completed. The bricks were taken off and sold at $20 per truckload. McCook Public Works Director Jack Lytle was with a group of citizens who examined the bricks being hauled away. He pointed out the condition of the bricks, noting that they were not worn out in the least, and contended that they would last forever.

In the almost 50 years that our family has been in McCook the concrete intersections from the depot to the courthouse have been replaced every few years. However, those bricks that cover Norris Avenue, which were laid down in 1919, have endured traffic and weather, and certainly appear to be unfazed by both. Maybe they really will last forever.

Source: McCook Gazette Centennial Edition 1882-1982.