Wood Storm Water Culvert Pipe

By Jon C. Schladweiler, P.E., R.L.S.; Historian, AWPCA

In the years prior to World War II, iron was routinely used to make the culvert pipe installed to convey storm water across/under roads. With the onset of World War II, it was important to find ways to save metal for higher and better purposes...such as for the "war effort."

Wood pipe (log pipe [unreinforced and reinforced], wood stave pipe, etc.) and wood conduit had been utilized in the United States since the late 1700s for a variety of activities including (but not necessarily limited to) water transmission, sewage conveyance, storm water, conduit for telephone and telegraph wires, etc.

When the need developed to come up with a substitute for metal storm culvert pipe during the early years of World War II, manufacturers came up with yet another design for wood pipe (see photos below).

As the photos serve to illustrate, the new wood pipe was made of small machine-cut sections of wood. The individual pieces and the adjacent rings of wood were interlocked with hardwood pins (dowels), thus providing a somewhat flexible pipe structure. Approximately 100,000 feet of this wood pipe were installed in 1942 alone as drainage culverts and storm sewers -- under roads, streets, and at army camps, naval stations, air fields, and ordinance plants. These pipes were made in sizes up to a nominal 36" (ID).

Wood culvert pipe being assembled with hardwood pins

Source: Farm Security Administration, Office of War Information.
Photograph collection (Library of Congress) dated 1943,
Reproduction number LC-USE6-D-008206 DLC (b&w film neg.)

Assembled section of wood culvert pipe

Source: Farm Security Administration, Office of War Information.
Photograph collection (Library of Congress) dated 1943,
Reproduction number LC-USE6-D-008207 DLC (b&w film neg.)