Context & Legacy · 1848 to Today
Why Plank Roads Still Matter:
Toll Roads, Monopoly,
and the Right to Move
One man's private grip on Chicago's roads in the 1870s sparked legal battles that reached the U.S. Supreme Court — and set precedents that echo in every toll road debate happening right now.
Before Chicago had paved streets, before the automobile, before the interstate highway system — before any of it — there was mud. Deep, axle-swallowing, horse-killing mud. And out of that mud came one of the most important and least remembered chapters in American infrastructure history: the plank road era.
Between 1848 and 1855, fifty miles of wooden plank roads radiated out of Chicago like spokes on a wheel. They were privately built, privately owned, and privately operated — funded by investors who recouped their money through toll gates. Farmers called them "the farmer's railroad." They were the difference between getting your goods to market and watching them rot in the mud.
They were also, within a decade, largely rotted, stolen, or burned. But the legal and political questions they raised — Who owns a road? Who has the right to charge for movement? When does private infrastructure become a public necessity? — those questions did not rot. They are still being argued today.
Then & Now
The Same Fight, 150 Years Apart
Chicago, 1870s–1889
- —Amos Snell buys the right-of-way from Cook County — a private monopoly on public movement
- —Farmers have no alternative route; they pay or they don't sell
- —Tolls collected at multiple gates on the same road — paying again and again
- —2½ cents per mile; $800/day at peak — enormous sums in 1880s dollars
- —City annexation ends the legal right to collect tolls inside city limits
- —U.S. Supreme Court rules toll authority is a life estate — cannot be inherited
America, Today
- —Private equity firms buy toll road concessions — same private monopoly on public movement
- —Commuters have no practical alternative; they pay or they don't work
- —Electronic tolling collects multiple times on the same corridor
- —Rates rise annually; profits flow to investors, not road maintenance
- —Lease agreements lock in private control for 75–99 years
- —Courts still wrestling with when a private road becomes a public necessity
"The names change. The technology changes. The argument does not: when does a private road become a public right? Amos Snell's farmers asked it with bonfires and fake Indian costumes in 1889. We ask it in courtrooms and city councils today."
Understanding the Technology
What a Plank Road Actually Was
A plank road was exactly what it sounds like: heavy wooden boards, typically 3–4 inches thick and 8 feet long, laid crosswise on wooden stringers set into the roadbed. The result was a surface that lifted wagon wheels out of the mud and gave horses solid footing — a dramatic improvement over the rutted dirt tracks that turned impassable every spring.
They were called "corduroy roads" because the parallel planks gave the surface a ribbed texture. They were cheap to build — roughly $3,000 per mile — and could be constructed quickly by local labor. Pine and hemlock were common; oak and black walnut lasted longer but cost more.
The fatal flaw was moisture. Ground water wicked up through the stringers. Freeze-thaw cycles heaved the planks. Heavy wagon loads cracked them. Within one to two years, a new plank road was already warping, rotting, and becoming dangerous. Planks floated away in floods. Settlers "borrowed" them for fences and floors.
The depression of 1857 killed most plank road companies financially before the roads themselves gave out. The spread of rail networks finished the rest. By the 1860s, the plank road era was effectively over — replaced by gravel, then brick, then macadam, then asphalt.
$3,000/mi
Average construction cost
1–2 years
Typical lifespan before rot
50 miles
Built around Chicago, 1848–55
8 ft planks
Standard board length
The Business Model
How Snell Turned Mud into Millions
Amos Snell arrived in Chicago in 1837 with $22 and a wagon. By the time he was murdered in 1888, his estate was valued at over $3 million — roughly $90 million in today's dollars. The engine of that fortune was a simple but ruthless insight: buy the right-of-way, not just the road.
In 1870, Snell purchased the Northwestern Plank-Road Company and its toll rights from Cook County. This gave him a legal monopoly on the major roads leading northwest out of Chicago — the Milwaukee Avenue corridor and the Elston Avenue corridor. Farmers bringing produce to market, families heading to Polish and Bohemian picnic grounds outside the city, funeral processions bound for the new cemeteries at Rose Hill and beyond — all of them had to pass through Snell's gates.
He charged 2½ cents per mile. He erected multiple toll gates on the same road so travelers paid again and again. At peak, his gates collected nearly $800 a day. Toll keeper William Ringler recalled a single Sunday — Polish and Bohemian picnics at Niles, new cemeteries opening — when his receipts alone hit $790. The average from all gates was $100 a day, every day.
"Snell gave northwestern farmers and merchants no choice but to pay whatever he wanted if they wanted to market their goods. For years money literally rolled in."
— Chicago & Cook County Cemeteries, Barry A. Fleig, 2024
This is the classic infrastructure monopoly playbook: identify a chokepoint, acquire the legal right to control it, and extract rent from everyone who has no alternative. Snell didn't invent it. He didn't even perfect it. But he executed it with enough aggression that his name became synonymous with the road itself — locals called Milwaukee Avenue "Snell's Road."
The Resistance
When Farmers Fought Back
The resistance to Snell's tolls took three forms — and all three have modern echoes.
01
The Workaround
Some farmers were "really good at finding ways to bypass the toll roads." Streets named Dodge across the Chicago area are a direct legacy of this — roads that literally dodged the toll gates. Today's equivalent: GPS apps routing drivers through residential neighborhoods to avoid toll plazas.
02
The Bonfire
In spring 1889, men dressed as wild Indians burned down the toll house at Milwaukee and Fullerton. The plot was hatched in a saloon at Milwaukee and California. Today's equivalent: the political backlash that killed the Chicago congestion pricing proposal, or the public fury over the Indiana Toll Road lease.
03
The Lawsuit
After Snell's murder, his heirs fought to inherit the toll rights. The Illinois Supreme Court and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against them — toll authority was a life estate, not heritable property. Today's equivalent: the ongoing litigation over whether private toll road concessions can override state and local authority.
The Legal Legacy
What the Courts Decided — and Why It Still Matters
When Chicago annexed the Township of Jefferson in 1889, the city began tearing down Snell's toll gates. The legal argument was straightforward: toll roads are not permissible inside city limits. Snell's heirs disagreed — they had inherited a valuable asset and intended to keep collecting.
The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1894, the Court upheld the Illinois ruling: the authority to collect tolls was a life estate — it had been granted personally to Snell, and it died with him. His heirs could inherit his real estate, his bank accounts, his 400 properties. They could not inherit the right to charge people for the use of a road.
Milwaukee Avenue has been a free and untrammeled road ever since. The precedent established in Snell v. Chicago — that a private toll franchise granted by a public body cannot be inherited as private property in perpetuity — echoes through infrastructure law to this day.
The Core Legal Question — Then and Now
1894 — Snell v. Chicago
Can a private toll franchise granted by a public body be inherited as private property? No. The franchise dies with the grantee. The public retains the right to reclaim the road.
Today — Toll Road Concessions
Can a 75-year private concession on a public highway override future public interest? Courts are still deciding. The tension between private investment and public necessity is unresolved — and growing.
A Personal Note
Why This Story Matters to Me
Amos Snell is my 3rd great-grandfather. I grew up knowing nothing about him — just a name on a family tree, a vague sense that someone in my lineage had been important in Chicago. When I started digging, I found a man who was simultaneously a visionary entrepreneur and a deeply unpopular monopolist. A man who built something genuinely useful — roads that lifted farmers out of the mud — and then extracted every dollar he could from the people who depended on them.
That tension is not unique to Amos Snell. It is the tension at the heart of every infrastructure debate we have today. Who builds the roads? Who pays for them? Who profits? And when does a private investment in public infrastructure become a public obligation?
The farmers who burned down his toll house in 1889 were not wrong. Neither was the Supreme Court that ruled against his heirs in 1894. The road had to be free. The question is always: when?
— Robin Beckham, great-great-great-granddaughter of Amos J. Snell
Primary Sources
Barry A. Fleig, Chicago & Cook County Cemeteries — Chicago's Plank Roads or Being Stuck in the Mud, August 5, 2024. chicagoandcookcountycemeteries.com
Illinois Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court records, Snell v. City of Chicago, 1892–1894. Illinois Courts (.gov)