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In
the Roaring 20s, much of the roar was probably from
frustrated motorists bumping along the rutted mud paths
that served as our highway system at the end of World
War I. In 1913, Henry Ford installed the first moving
assembly line to build his Model T car, and by 1920,
it churned out 372,249 units. By 1925, he cranked out
1,996,042 of the little black buggies
"The
1920s were a golden age for road building. In 1922 alone,
federal-aid projects totaling more than 10,000 miles were completed at a
cost of $189 million, three times as much roadway as
had been improved since the start of the federal-aid
highway program in 1916. The projects usually involved
providing graded earth, sand-clay, orgravel surfaces,"
says Richard Weingroff, writing a history of our roads
on the Federal Highway Administration web site.
Carpé road dust
Graded earth? Gravel? So, the
touring choices were mud or choking dust. At least a
fine spray of "road oil" held down dust and
gave the gravel something to hold onto. So, brothers
Len and Mert Vance saw an opportunity and established
the Vance  pattern
— build something that will do the job. They put
together their own oil distributor machine. Sporting
hard rubber tires for compaction, it carried an air
compressor to pump air into the top of the tank and
force the oil out the spigots onto the roadbed.
Now look
From that humble beginning,
Len and Mert only went forward with their business.
Fueled by the golden age for road building, they quickly
found markets for their products and services, because
they took great care to make sure their products performed
as agreed. The company grew steadily over the years
to become a leading supplier of superior products and
services.
Still family owned, the descendants
of Len and Mert grew up in the business. Because Vance
Brothers works on the front lines, in the service side,
contracting for a wide variety of jobs, the company
knows its products inside out. They understand what
works best, when you need it and how you need it.
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