Scenes From The History Of Snow Removal

image credit UVM Libraries' Center for Digital Initiative

In the good old days, to keep roads in optimal snowy condition, many municipalities employed a 'snow warden' to pack and flatten the snow with a crude vehicle called a snow roller - essentially a giant, wide wheel weighed down with rocks and pulled by oxen or horses.

A far cry from the winter road work we see today, it was more like maintaining a ski slope or smoothing out an ice rink. Snow wardens actually had to install snow on the pathways of covered bridges so that travel would not be interrupted. The History Of Snow Removal.