The Bryan - Defiance Road, Route 15

 "HISTORIAN RECALLS BRYAN - DEFIANCE ROAD

"How many of the Press readers know that the Defiance - Bryan road was not always what is now State Route 15?

The first road made after Bryan was located in 1840 and made county seat of Williams County, ran to the lower Langdon corner northwest of Brunersburg, then north on Evansport road to Bean Creek where Rural Chapel was built in the '50s, then running west along the river through Larry Partee land, over Mud Creek, then on through Justice and Kibble lands, over Kibble Run (small streams were called runs, later made county ditches), then through the Figley woods, over the hill across Lick Creek as a good fording place, on through the Cameron lands, over Prairie Creek, and on to Bryan.

Later, the road ran on Bellefontaine Pike to Ney and then up the present road, and that road was a corduroy and something like a pontoon, as it swayed in travel, so wet and marshy for years, logs pinned together by planks and wooden pine.

  

When two teams met, it was natural for one to get off into the mud and go back after passing.  For years, the plunk-plunk sound of the corduroy could be felt and fairly heard after the road was built up and later graveled.  

The Old Man well remembers the open space in the Figley woods where the first road was made in the early '40s and how the timber gradually grew up and filled the empty place.

UG. Figley"

Bryan Press, Bryan, Ohio, May 27, 1943, p. 8