County still owns unpaved roads

At last Tuesday’s meeting of the Commissioners Court, 92-year-old Jack Unkel addressed the court about an obstruction a neighboring landowner had placed in the middle of an unpaved road public road, blocking access to his own land and the cows he keeps there.

The neighbor has put a fencepost in the middle of the road. Unkel can maneuver around it, but he doesn’t think he should have to. So he brought the matter to the county attorney and the commissioners.

The first problem for the county is determining whether or not it is a county-owned road. The public might expect there to be records for this kind of thing, but there aren’t always.

“This road has been there all of my life,” Unkel told them.

That it is unpaved doesn’t matter. As Unkel explained, even the road to Humble used to be just dirt and gravel.

The part of the road to Unkel’s property that is paved is now called CR 614. The unpaved part extends north to the railroad tracks, and according to Unkel, once ran all the way “to the Old Cleveland Road.”

Asked by commissioners if it is a county-owned public road, the best the county attorney’s office could offer is that they believe so.

Commissioners then voted to have the county attorney issue a notice to the neighboring land owner advising him to remove the obstruction and to have a survey done.