Hookers Cut

The cut itself is only about 4/10 of a mile long in the middle of a mile long section of new road but it required blasting, crushing and moving 280,000 cubic yards of limestone at a cost of about $245,000.00, in 1942 dollars, not including paving. All that blasting and crushing produced something like 87,000 tons of aggregate , which was apparently expected to be used to prepare for paving the new road and other road projects.

The cut was projected to take six moths to complete, that timeline proved to be overly optimistic. The contract for the work was let in September of 1941 and the excavating was still going on in August of 1942. When the cut completed and graded sometime later it was the deepest cut on a highway up to that time in the state of Missouri. But the cutting and hauling was just part of the story, the road wasn't paved and opened until June of 1945.

The work on the cut was done by the Fred Weber Construction Company during WWII as part of a project to accommodate heavy traffic and large vehicles headed to and from Fort Leonard Wood and allowed them to avoid the sharp turns on the narrow two lane road road through Devils Elbow.

A new 685 foot long bridge across the Big Piney River was the another major part of the project. The bid for building the bridge wasn't let until August of 1942 and the bridge didn't open until December of 1945. The bridge contractor was O'Dell & Riney of Hannibal, MO who bid $273, 347.40 for the contract. On at least one earlier attempt in 1942 the state received no bids to build the bridge. That may have been because labor and materials were in pretty short supply during the war.

That's the rock wall rising almost straight up on the sides of the cut.

Photo(s): 2012