Ionia County MI Archives Obituaries.....Williams, Allan M. 1979 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/mi/mifiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Marilyn Ransom mlnransom@chartermi.net August 13, 2010, 7:26 pm The Ionia Sentinel-Standard, June 4, 1979 Allan M. Williams, long-time Ionia County Engineer, pioneer of modern road building, and the man who invented the roadside picnic table, died Sunday afternoon in an East Lansing nursing home. He was 87 years old and had been ill since suffering a stroke late this winter. He had been confined to a nursing home in East Lansing for several months. Services will be held Wednesday at 11 a.m. from the First United Methodist Church of Ionia. Williams served as engineer-manager of the Ionia County Road Commission from 1919 to 1957 and under his supervision Ionia County built the roads and developed the all-seasons road maintenance system that won a national award and was often cited as a model. Williams was also for many years an officer and manage of the Ionia Free Fair. He founded and developed Bertha Brock Park, the Ionia County Airport and was a founder of Ionia County Memorial hospital. He served numerous professional and charitable organizations as president, officer and member. The achievement for which Williams became most widely known, nationally and internationally, was as the inventor and designer of the roadside picnic table. The site of the first table, at the intersection of Morrison Lake Road and Grand River Avenue, in Boston Township, was awarded an historical marker in 1964. Williams was born in Ludington on January 26, 1892. He graduated from Ludington High School in 1912 and entered Kalamazoo College. He transferred to the University of Michigan and graduated with a degree in civil engineering in 1916. After graduation from Michigan, he was employed by Western Hydro Electric Co. and Pruden Wheel Works, both in Detroit. He joined the Michigan State Highway Department as a project engineer in 1918. In conjunction with a $50 million dollar highway bond issue in 1919, he drafted the state’s first complete highway map. Williams came to Ionia in 1919 as engineer-manager of the Ionia County Road Commission, about the same time the late Fred W. Green, later Governor of Michigan, became a member of the county road commission. Between 1919 and 1927, Williams continued as project engineer for the state highway department, as well as serving as engineer-manager of Ionia County roads. Between 1919 and 1925, Williams designed and oversaw the construction of the first Ionia County roads on rights-of-way wider than the standard 66 feet, some of the first such roads built in Michigan. During his first years at the road commission, he also pioneered in the use of the straight-blade snow plow, as substitute for the standard V-plow, thereby eliminating traffic tie-ups by reducing roadside snow banks and facilitating snow removal. Williams conceived and developed Green View Point. Located on what was then M- 21, Green View Point, named for Gov. Green, was the first trunkline scenic turnout. Williams arranged for the purchase of the land from John Winwright, landscaped the plot, and designed the marker. The turnout is about 175 feet above the level of Grand River and provides long vistas along the river valley. For many years, before they were common, this turnout attracted visitors from considerable distances, especially in the fall. (The brass marker honoring Fred W. Green was removed by vandals a number of years ago.) Another major undertaking was reorganization of Ionia County Road Commission operations, including the design of its garage at 169 E. Riverside Drive, Ionia. Prior to the opening of the Riverside Drive garage, road commission equipment and vehicles had been housed on South Steele Street and elsewhere. Officers were located in the basement of the Ionia County Court House. The Riverside Drive facility was opened early in 1928. The first roadside picnic table, Williams recalled later, came into existence because he and his family enjoyed weekend drives and picnics. While many locations, he said, were inviting, there were often only stumps, at best, to serve as tables. He designed a table in 1929 and had Jacob Moore, a road commission employee, construct it, using planks salvaged from old guard rails. He had it placed at the Boston Township location—Grand River was then new U.S. 16 and a major state traffic artery—and it soon proved popular with motorists. He had some additional tables built and placed in other locations in Ionia County. After letters of appreciation were received by the State Highway Department in Lansing, B. C. Finney, then chief of highway maintenance, investigated and found Williams was “his culprit.” After congratulating Williams and asking not to be the last to know next time, Finney ordered additional picnic tables from the road commission on Williams’s design. Over the next five years, the road commission built more than 1,000 picnic tables for the state and ceased only when the demand became too great for it to handle. Work on Green View Point apparently whetted Williams’s interest in parks. With a good deal of negotiation and with fundamental assistance in time and money from Ionia County Fishing and Hunting Club, Williams started development of Bertha Brock Park in 1931 and continued supervision until his retirement. He told the Ionia County Board of Commissions in November 1978, one of his last public appearances, “Frank Harkness worked with me on the park. We never cut a tree unless both of us agreed it was necessary. We wanted to keep it a ‘wildwood’ park.” In 1934, with Federal aid available, Williams originated the idea of an Ionia County Airport and the county board of supervisors agreed. He directed the development and construction of airport facilities and remained its manager until his retirement. Elected president of the County Road Association of Michigan in 1934, Williams contributed to the passing of the Hayden—Cartwright Act, providing federal aid for local highways. He also led a successful fight in Michigan against the attempted reduction of the gasoline tax from three to two cents per gallon and limitation at that rate, through a proposed constitutional amendment. Williams recognized the gasoline tax as a major source of highway funding and believed in it as a form of use-taxation. The gasoline tax permitted tax levies on real property for highways to be discontinued in Michigan. In 1940 Williams won the first place award in the Better Roads magazine contest for excellence in county road management. The competition was open to all counties in the United States in the 20,000 to 50,000 population classification. The award brought many highway builders and supervisors to Ionia County to inspect the local system. During the 30 years between 1927 and 1957, Williams and the Ionia County Road Commission gained a wide reputation for excellent in trunkline maintenance, particularly in speedy snow removal and ice control. The road commission was among the first county commissions in Michigan to hold a contract with the state Department of Highways for trunkline maintenance and has kept its contract since 1925. Williams was twice an announced candidate for state highway commissioner when the post was elective and partisan. He announced his candidacy in 1941 but the Republican nomination went to his friend, LeRoy Smith, Wayne County engineer, who was defeated. Williams announced again in 1943, but the Republican nomination went to another friend, Charles M. Zeigler, who was elected. Williams was elected president of the Southern Michigan Road Commissioners Association in 1953. He was elected president of the American Road Builders Association (ARBA), county and local roads division, in 1955. He organized and presided over its national highway conference, in Gatlinburg, Tenn., in 1955. Re-elected president of ARBA for a second year in 1956, Williams organized and presided over its national conference on Mackinac Island that year. More than 1,000 engineers from all over the U.S. came to see and hear about he Mackinac Bridge, then under construction. In 1956 Williams became active in the West Michigan Tourist Association, was named to its board, and continued active in its work until his death. He was named a life member of the Michigan Engineering Society in 1969. Active well into his 80s, Williams addressed the Michigan Asphalt Paving Association in 1975, showing movies of Ionia County road operations in the 20s and 30s. In 1976, Williams was named “Michigan Tourist Ambassador” by Gov. William G. Milliken, in recognition of his “outstanding contribution to Michigan’s travel industry, in particular the picnic table.” In 1977 he addressed the Michigan Highway Engineers conference, sponsored by the Michigan Department of State Highways and Transportation, for the last time. On November 21, 1977, Williams cut the ribbon opening the last section in I-96, 12 miles of the Jeffries Freeway in Detroit. He was invited to do so because he had been project engineer on the last gap of U.S.-16, completed in 1926, and had cut the ribbon then. Under appointment from Clarence S. Johnson, then mayor of Ionia, Williams did fundamental work in establishing the Ionia County Memorial Hospital. He served as chairman of the Board of Trustees and administrator for the hospital, from 1943 to 1949. He was variously director, secretary-manager and president of the Ionia Free Fair Association, between 1938 and 1964, serving 12 terms as president. Under his direction, brick removed from Ionia’s Main Street were used to build part of the fence around the fairground’s race trace. Williams was past president of the Michigan Association of Fairs and Exhibitions; of the Southern Michigan Fair and Racing Circuit; of Ionia Rotary Club; and of the Ionia Boy Scout Council. Williams is survived by seven children: Miss Kathleen Williams of Midland and Mrs. Honor Barit of Indian Wells, Calif.; Richard of West Bloomfield, Ben of Lansing, Keith of Traverse City, Robin of Gaylord and Colin of Saranac. Fourteen grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren also survive. The mother of the Williams children, Mrs. Esther Ackerman Williams, died December 21, 1970. Williams married Mrs. Hazel Williams of Ludington, the widow of his brother Harold, in July 1972. The second Mrs. Williams died in March 1979. The family will be at the Leddick Funeral Home Monday from 7 to 9 p.m. and Tuesday from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. Memorial funds have been established for the University of Michigan College of Engineering Scholarship Fund and for the Ionia County Historical Society. Burial will be in Lakeview Cemetery, Ludington. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/mi/ionia/obits/w/williams7885nob.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/mifiles/ File size: 11.2 Kb