The fire that visited the city Saturday morning and laid waste many beautiful structures was instrumental in tying up pavement operations on Forest Avenue. The company that is furnishing Contractor George Stanchfield with the cement used on the Forest avenue pavement concluded from newspaper accounts that the city, was in ruins and that it would be needless to ship more cement. Consequently the contractor is tied up, unable to proceed with the improvement work until more cement arrives. Two cars that were shipped have failed to reach the city, one being wrecked and the other going astray.

On South Main street the McCugo Construction company is unable to lay concrete because of the lack of stone chips. But a short distance remains to be completed with the concrete, after which the sand cushion and brick pavement will be put in. the concrete flooring is being put on the Western avenue bridge and in two or three weeks that structure will be thrown open for traffic.

The street railway welding operations are being pushed with rapidity. The welding on the two tracks has been completed as far as Fourth street, and the rails that have split because of contraction are being sawed out and replaced with new ones. The sawing process is carried on by hand and is slow, it taking about four hours to cut through a rail.

The cement on Forest avenue has been laid from the beginning of the work at the west end east to the corner of Waupun and Forest avenue. At this point the street intersections have been put down.

The working of laying the cement top and concrete foundation is carried on with considerable speed. Contractor Stanchfield has two mixing machines at work. One takes care of the concrete foundation and the other is occupied in mixing the top coat or wearing service. This is composed of sand granite and cement. The two mixing machines are operated at the same time, so that as fast as the foundation of concrete goes down another crew follows up with the top dressing.

A third mixing machine is used at the curb work. This is stationed between the Wisconsin Central and the North Western tracks where preparations are now being made to lay the curb. Another short piece of curbing will have to go in between the St. Paul tracks and those of the Wisconsin Central. Nearly all of the grading has been done on the street as well as on Union and Military streets which are to be similarly paved by the same contractor.

As freezing weather plays havoc with cement pavement laying Contractor Stanchfield is anxious to finish up in good season and consequently a large crew of men is employed.