Road – Cottonmill Lake NE

Description

In March 1935, nearly one hundred Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) workers started work at Cottonmill Lake, located west of Kearney. Primarily, they were involved in widening and improving the driveway around the lake. The shovel crews were widening the roadway, cutting away the sharp turns, reducing the steep grades, and surfacing the roadway with gravel. The Buffalo County Sportmans’ League underwrote the project by supplying all the gravel and covering the costs of hauling it in. In this way, the FERA funding could be reserved for labor alone. The first “survey” of the road was made very simply: Arnold Webbert simply drove his car around the lake, and anywhere the car could travel, they decided a roadway could be built.