This is one of those "it depends" questions.
For the most part in this era, in small towns you would likely see sidewalks confined to the business district in downtown. Most likely, they would be wood in a small town, but concrete was coming into wider use. Some old wooden sidewalks might be replaced by those wanting to avoid the regular expenses of maintaining a wooden sidewalk. I could easily see a mixture of sidwalks, old wooden, new wooden, and concrete.
In residential zones, I imagine sidewalks were much rarer and probably limited to a few prosperous neighborhoods in larger rural towns.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
I disagree. Most towns of any size had concrete sidewalks even when the streets were still upaved. This is a picture of Rhyolite, Nevada in 1908. You can see the concrete sidewalks and dirt streets:
This a picture of Goldfield, Nevada in 2005. All the streets but the main street are still dirt but you can see the remains of the concrete sidewalks:
This is Tonopah, Nevada in about 1925. You still see dirt streets and concrete sidewalks:
Now, if your town looks like Hornsilver (later Gold Point) Nevada then board sidewalks would look just fine.
I am working on Salida, Colorado for my 1933 N-Scale layout. I have not built the business district yet but I know from my research visits to the Salida Museum and Library last summer that the sidewalks in Salida were concrete in 1933 but the streets were still dirt. I think the concrete sidewalks were put in during the 1920's but don't remember the year since I was just focusing on what existed in 1933. Salida may have been a little larger than a "rural" town but I don't think it was very big.
Mike B.
'BOARDWALKS' were common in the 'old west' or when most railroads were built.
Wood rots, and doesn't last long, so gets replaced with concrete.
'Scenic' western towns like 'Tombstone AZ'. Jackson WY. may keep some of their old Boardwalk sections for 'flavor' if Merchants pay for their upkeep.
In a lot of small towns, the wooden sidewalks were more in the line of wooden porches, part of the adjacent building. That is why there were often several steps up from the street, and steps where the "sidewalk" changed levels.
By 1920, some (but by no means all) of the wooden walkways might have been replaced with concrete. If the local bank and the county courthouse were masonry buildings, they probably had the first concrete sidewalks in town.
Towns in Nevada had concrete sidewalks for a very simple reason. No local timber. Timber that was shipped in was used in the mines, not for walkways. 100% of the timber for wood sidewalks would have had to be shipped in. Only 5% or so of the large-aggregate sidewalk concrete (the cement) would have been imported; the rest could be collected and screened to size locally. Then, too, after several serious fires that all but destroyed towns, local codes were written to favor concrete and masonry construction.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Concrete was in use for sure. I remember seeing builders imprints dating back to the 1900's as a kid. I used to drive by a railroad culvert on an old B&O branch in the middle of nowhere that was dated 1902.
That said don't rule out brick, a lot of that was still being put in both for sidewalks and roads in the twenties. In Illinios, Gov. Emerson who was know as the "good roads" Gov. figured out that he could build twice as many roads if you only paved one lane with brick and left the other dirt. You were supposed to drive on the paved portion and yield to oncoming traffic as needed. Says something about the speeds and traffic density of the time. Some of those roads were still around in rural Illinois in the '70's. The other side was paved with concrete or asphalt by then, but one side was still brick. Would make a neat model.
Go with either strip wood cut to scale dimensions or ditto styrene as you prefer for the board walks. The consistancy of material will really make for an easier and better looking job in the end. If you're going to put that much work into, I'd suggest spending a little extra on materials.
JBB
I put wooden board walks in my town because it "looked right". It was a logging town so there was lumber. To build it I used 1/8 in square stock for stringers and scale 2x8 lumber for the walk itself. I weathered the wood before I cut it. I weathered each stick a little different and then when cut and glued them up in random, I got an interesting look.
If you are not modeling a specific place from an existing picture, do what looks right to you. Tombstone "looks right" even though who know what was there for the mining days. Bisbee has concrete and that looks right for that town as well.
This is a town in rural Minnesota in 1914. The wooden walkway is what I was thinking of. Apperently, I'm off by a few years. I'll admit, most pictures I see are of concrete walkways. Thanks for everyones responses. I can always count on good advice from the folks here.
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
This is my town, 1914:
1918 (close to your era):
and 194- (the wood sidewalks are gone)
tomikawaTT wrote: Towns in Nevada had concrete sidewalks for a very simple reason. No local timber. Timber that was shipped in was used in the mines, not for walkways. 100% of the timber for wood sidewalks would have had to be shipped in. Only 5% or so of the large-aggregate sidewalk concrete (the cement) would have been imported; the rest could be collected and screened to size locally. Then, too, after several serious fires that all but destroyed towns, local codes were written to favor concrete and masonry construction.Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I think it had more to do with the size and resources of the town. There was considerable timber available in the early twentieth century in the mountains. Most of it was burned to fuel the mine boilers but both pinon and ponderosa pine were used for sidewalks in small towns like Hornsilver. As towns grew and developed a city government, the bad effects of sun and low humidity on this green wood became readily apparent and it was much cheaper to do concrete sidewalks than keep replacing the wood. For towns like Hornsilver, which never really developed into any kind of city, each building owner put out a wood sidewalk and, as you wrote, they tended to run up and down to connect various buildings. If the town didn't grow, it never went further than that. Some of the original wood sidewalks are still in place at Gold Point (old Hornsilver) although I don't think any of the wood is original. It's about 100 miles up 95 from you and an interesting visit should you wish to escape Sin City for a while...assuming you haven't already been there.
A point was bought up about brick sidewalks and those were very common in the east. It's an alternative if neither wood or concrete looks right.