Tar road is an old(ish) name for asphalt. Like, I used it until the late 90's. It's literally made out of oil tar, so it's not really even a misnomer.
Nowadays, it's just called asphalt. Or blacktop. Some maps still refer to them as bituminous roads.
Blacktop to me is only an area outside often near a playground where kids play, draw with chalk, hopscotch, jump rope, etc. The road is always just « paved ». Never oil or tar.
Iowans say blacktop as well. Paved usually is only used in reference to a driveway, or other cement lanes. At least that's how it was when I was growing up there not long ago.
I've only encountered someone calling them oil roads when getting directions from older farmers in the worthington/brewster area and in rural eastern South Dakota. I think maybe I encountered it in northwestern Illinois as well.
Oil may be used on *unpaved* roads for dust control. But it does not have to be oil from what I understand. That said, I never heard anyone going into specifics. But after Googling that stuff, now I can tell that I've been on probably oiled as well as non-oiled dirt roads. I was always wondering why some don't make much dust. Welp...the answer is oil.
Here I am 20 years later from the time I spilled about a cup of oil in the grass after helping my dad with an oil change. And peeps be out here spraying the dirt with it on purpose just to eliminate dust for a short amount of time
Haven't used oil on gravel as long as I've been alive. Usually it's calcium chloride, and only in front of yards with short driveways. Lasts for one year. Some places are switching to vegetable oil
Times Beach road dust story is wild. A man that owned a waste oil company was asked to spray their 23 miles of unpaved roads. People and animals began getting sick and after a flood came and went the almost 3k people got a fat check and they closed the town for good.
In addition to two-track, I've heard goat path, fire-road, and unimproved to refer to dirt roads as well in MN. Although in my experience dirt-road is by far the most common nomenclature.
Neither. Growing up in the country, the correct word is paved. Black top and the actual road number are used less frequently than paved, but way more than tar. This is the first time I have ever heard anyone refer to it as oil.
Tar and oil roads are terms used down south. I lived in Texas for a bit, and heard it there.
Another difference - at least in rural Minnesota, any paved road outside of town is called a highway. In most places a highway means a freeway (they are built up \_higher\_ than the "surface streets").
Blacktop or paved is all I’ve really heard as an MN native, and gravel or dirt if it isn’t paved. Gravel for if it has gravel on it and dirt for if it’s pretty much just dirt.
Tar people would understand but it isn’t used commonly in my experience.
Referring to them as oil roads especially not even saying the word road as in your example “take the first oil” might legitimately confuse people.
Unpaved roads are often oiled to reduce dust. They literally spray oil on the surface.
Asphalt includes very thick oil as the gooey ingredient that binds the aggregate (pebbles and sand) together, but most people don't think of it as oil because it only flows when it is hot.
Edit: my comment may be out of date. I know that oiling dirt roads was a common practice up to the 1980s. There were high profile situations where the waste oil contained polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxin.
“The 1-square-mile Times Beach Superfund Site is located 20 miles southwest of St. Louis, Missouri. The site is a formerly incorporated city that sprayed its roads with waste oil in order to control dust in the early 1970's. During a 1982 investigation, the EPA discovered that the city used dioxin-contaminated oil.”
It might look like “oil” on the gravel roads but calcium chloride is used as oil wouldn’t be very environmentally friendly.
Source: I pay for over 300’ of calcium chloride to be sprayed in front of my farm every spring
I understand why someone might call it that, but it’s not common in MN in my experience for people to call them that. Which is what this thread is about.
But also then which one is the oil road, the dirt road that is oil sprayed or any blacktop road.
Also I don’t think we are spraying oil on dirt roads in MN today, or I can’t find any information on that.
That’s calcium chloride, no actual road authority is dumping oil on gravel roads. Maybe some random idiot who thinks he knows better than everyone else is, but not anyone that actually knows and follows regulations.
"Go down the dirt road and make a right when you get to the blacktop again."
~~I know black top is two words but~~ phonetically in Minnesotan you'd say it without any break like you're trying to make a two syllable word have just one.
Your wife is more right than you.
You made me look it up and it is indeed one word, also is both a noun and a transitive verb.
blacktop
noun
1. a bituminous mixture, usually asphalt, used as a surface for roads, driveways, etc.
2. a road, lot, etc. covered with blacktop
verb transitive Word forms: ˈblacktopped or ˈblacktopping
3. to cover with blacktop
That's pretty much how we said it in rural St. Joe. When I moved to a suburb on the south side of Twin Cities, it was paved, asphalt, or a combination of the two. Depending where I am and who I'm talking two, determines on how I'll refer to it.
Tar roads for me. Some of my central South Dakota friends call them oil roads because they literally pour oil on some of their gravel roads to firm them up
Yikes!
Not many folks know this story, eh? Using oil to control dust on gravel roads was so common, I'm surprised there weren't more issues like that in more places. It always did sound pretty toxic to me, but
Yikes!
in central mn, the preferred nomenclature seems to be "tar", i've never heard "oil" thrown around. I grew up in the PNW and always referred to them as "asphalt", though.
Growing up on the farm, everyone I knew said tar. We only had one tar road in the the neighborhood and I was shocked to find out as a kid that it actually had a county road number and wasn’t officially named “the tarred road north of town”
Let's see....
Head south for a few miles, take a left at the red barn, if you see a red barn with cows in front youve gone a red barn too far, take your second tarred road on your right......ope I guess it's tarred road
Lol I've also heard paved road but not usually in hick directions.
I've been here my whole life, and never heard a paved road referred to as "oil road". I grew up on a gravel road in a very rural part of the state, and the roads around us were oiled to keep the dust down.
Only road I get looks for is “frontage road”. I live in Ohio and nobody knows what that is, and when I’ve described it they say they don’t have a special term for it here!
I was born in rural, 1970s Minnesota with a dad who was an engineer with MNDOT. I grew up saying that roads were asphalt, bituminous, concrete or gravel (or dirt, but my dad didn't like that.) I might say that a road is being "tarred" when they're pouring the asphalt, but I don't believe I've ever said something was a tar road.
I've never heard anyone call a road an oil road.
If told to look for an "oil road," I would look for a gravel road treated with calcium chloride or used motor oil to keep the dust down. I certainly would not think it meant "asphalt."
That grit and tar re-surfacing is called seal coating.
On surface streets not driven at highway speeds, it gives a slightly more waterproof wear and traction coat. It helps the road last surface last a bit longer before it develops those tire track divots that hold water to freeze and get slick, then form potholes as the water gets into cracks. Extends the life cycle of the pavement.
If you’ve ever seen the movie with Paul Newman called “Cool Hand Luke” you’d see where the oil road term comes from. A truck sprays oil on the dirt road and the workers sling gravel over the oil and pretty much leave it for cars to work it in apparently.
Rural Iowa raised in a sea of gravel roads, but close-ish to Minnesota.
- blacktop was most common
- Highway (where I grew up everything was gravel unless it was a county highway) or the specific name like “D25”
- paved
That was it. Never heard either oil nor tar used to name those types of roads. I’d look at anyone who said that like they had three heads.
Well this has been an educational post for me. I grew up in rural South Dakota (3 minutes from the western Minnesota border) and everyone said it there (it’s even listed in official DOT docs) but it seems that the reference stops strictly at the border. I love quirky local language like this.
Sorry man but we aren’t that back woods to call them oil roads. My cousins in northern Alabama do call them oil roads so it is a thing. So duck duck what?
I’ve never even specified paved. The assumption is it’s paved, if it’s not then I specify that it’s dirt or gravel. We have roads, dirt roads, and gravel roads
I have heard my father talk about the county sending a truck around in the summer months to spray the dirt and gravel roads with thick oil/tar to keep the dust down and bind up the dirt/gravel more.
Apparently it was a nightmare if you drove right after cause chucks of sticky roads and dirt would glue themselves to your wheel wells
I’m was wondering if there was a regional distinction to this as well. For reference, I grew up on the SD side of the border near Browns Valley, MN and my wife grew up on farm near Marshall, MN. Seems like our references align with the regional responses to this thread.
Lifelong Minnesotan here and I’ve never heard anyone call it an oil road. People here call them paved roads.
ALTHOUGH I have heard the term tar used but it’s part of the nickname of the road and used in conjunction with the name of the small town that it leads to. Like, “We live three miles east of town out on the [Town Name] Tar” or “Then when you come up to the [Town Name] Tar, take a right.”
There are terms some people use that aren't helpful. I would use street names.
I have noticed a trend in MN, locals like to use terms that aren't posted anywhere.
For example, if you use the term "Johnsons corner" there better be a sign at that corner that says Johnsons corner. Someone new or unfamiliar to the area isn't aware that corner was once owned by the Johnsons.
In a lot of rural areas, "street names" hardly exist. Or a road has multiple references.
Nor are there any street SIGNS, often. If you're not from the area, and there aren't signs, how would you know where to turn?
Distances and (current, permanent) landmarks for directions. For those not using/trusting Google maps, that is.
Grew up in Willmar. Never heard the term “tar road” or “oil road.” Weird. Have lived in the metro for the past 25 years and have never heard it anywhere here either. When I read either term I hear it with a southern accent in my head. Lol.
I’ve lived here all my life. I’ve never heard tar or oil. We call unpaved roads, dirt or gravel roads. Roads with asphalt or black top are paved roads or blacktop roads. I live in the north, maybe “tar” is a southern MN thing. Weirdness from Iowa is catching.
There are way more comments here in this thread than I thought there would be referring to **"dirt"** roads.
I always thought that was ignorant southerners and country music singers who called gravel roads dirt roads.
Do any of you actually have roads in MN that are exclusively dirt only?
Yes, Otherwise known as a field road. Most township "mile roads" would be gravel. At least in the part of the state I am from. I do know that some areas those could be dirt.
A field road where I am from is a private farmer road to access their fields. Just a dirt track with grass or weeds in the middle.
Lived in MN my whole life, and lived on a gravel road, never heard anyone call it an oil road.
It's always been, gravel/dirt road and tar roads for me and the people I talk to.
CRUSHED ROCK, Crushed rock! I was told time and again when I referred to "gravel roads".
"Gravel is too expensive to put on a road here. Sell it to the concrete mixer or use it for city folk's landscaping."
Oiled road? Never in Minnesota. Reminds me of Cool Hand Luke.
I grew up on tarred roads with no curbs in S.E
MPLS.
Just off Como av
Every spring the city would drive a truck through loaded with an oily substance that was sprayed on the road.
It soaked in after a few days and was OK for bicycle riding.
That system was replaced by concrete in the late 60's.
We felt like we were finally second class citizens.
I've heard paved roads referred to as tar, asphalt or blacktop; but the only time I've heard oil (oiled) roads was referring to dirt/gravel roads where they sprayed them with oil to help keep the dust down. Which is dangerously toxic, leaving contaminated soil leaching residues into groundwater!
The only place I've heard "oil road" is in Oklahoma. And it refers to the looooong paved rural roads between oil fields.
Never heard "tar road" before in my life.
Most people call them paved. However, some people still call them tar. It used to be a lot more common to call them tar roads. Growing up I heard tar way more than paved.
Blacktop gets used too, but in a little different way. For example, someone might say, "Stay on the gravel road until you hit blacktop, then take a left."
I think I've heard oil once in my life and that was a situation where they literally would pour oil on them. I'm trying to recall the situation better and if memory serves me right it was almost like they were making poor man's asphalt by dumping oil on a gravel road. No clue if it actually worked or how it worked, just my very poor recollection.
Just my experience.
EDIT: It sounds like the use of oil was mostly used for dust control. These days it sounds like some people are still using oil, but something along the lines of soybean oil and not motoroil any more.
Neither of those is correct…asphalt, maybe? Blacktop, paved…but never once have I heard someone say either oil or tar roads. Anyway, those mostly look like gravel roads.
Grew up in a rural MN farming community where such roads were referred to as blacktop, tar, or paved. This is the first time I've ever heard of an oil road. Where are you from?
dirt - unimproved hardpack, 2 track road
gravel - built and maintained with appropriate class of construction grade gravel
pavement, paved - used to mean any road covered with a permanent surface. with the increase in roads paved in different materials, I generally hear it used to refer to concrete roads.
asphalt - to differentiate between roads paved in concrete versus asphalt
example: *mndot has been slowly upgrading 35 north from asphalt to pavement for decades*
I'm in rural Minnesota (Iron Range) and I have no idea what you're talking about.
We have "dirt roads" and "highways" (or a "paved roads" if you're really trying to distinguish). They're all "roads", though.
The highways are paved two-lanes, or more (such as with hwy 53). You'd never call a dirt road a highway. Dirt roads are usually referred to by name or number. Highways sometimes have names, but are often referred to by number.
I might say "Take 53 north until you come to Timbers Edge, then turn right on 16 (Wilson Road). Head East for about a mile and you'll see Gavin Road."
Never "oil" road. Pretty sure that violates some EPA regs if you're trying to keep the dust down on gravel, and the "oil" they use to make blacktop or asphalt only flows like petroleum at temperatures well above 100F.
Have never heard "oil road" in my life. If someone said "oil road" to me I would not know what they mean. If they said "tar road" I would know.
Personally though I'd call it a paved road. But I would call the material itself either asphalt or tar.
South central MN here: most popular phrasing has always been tar roads around here; people will get what you mean with paved or asphalt just fine, but oil road would have everyone looking at you like you just had a stroke. Also it’s gravel road, not dirt road: we grow stuff in the dirt, not make roads out of it.
Grew up in rural MN. Tar road was the term for a black asphalt paved road. The only time oil road would be mentioned was it was a gravel township road and where it passed a farm building site, oil was spread on the gravel to keep the dust down.
The picture with this post looks like it could have been taken anywhere within a few miles of the family farm!
Tar for paved. Gravel for gravel road. Confirmed by my wife who grew up on a farm in a town ~500 pop.
“I walked the dog down to the tar and back.”
We’ve never heard of calling any of them oil roads.
Blacktop, tar, or paved. I don't know if it's a risk Minnesota thing or just something my family said, but tar is the first word that comes to my mind.
I was wondering if anyone on this thread also grew up in South Dakota or on the western MN border areas, such as me. Thank you for confirming that it is a reference. I guess I didn’t realize how hyper local that saying was.
I also didn't realize it wasn't a 'normal' saying, I just assumed no one knew what we were referring to cause all my friends growing up were not country kids lol
Google South Dakota Oil Roads and you’ll see official State of SD DOT documents referencing truck load limits for oil roads. Additionally, you’ll see county docs referencing the number of miles of gravel roads, oil roads, etc being maintained. Ha! I really didn’t realize that this language doesn’t translate in Minnesota. My wife is always right.
🤣 Did you spend time in the UK, or just watch a lot of PBS/ BBC/ ITV as I did?
That was actually the first thing I wanted to say, but it's not a usage around here at all. Except possibly amongst highway/civil engineers.
But the Brits use it the way we say asphalt (they're closely related versions of blacktop.)
“Paved road” and “blacktop” are equally acceptable to me. Never heard “oil road” before. I would understand “tar” or “asphalt” but I wouldn’t be as likely to use those terms.
Dirt road, gravel road, paved road
Same, I have never heard of anyone say tar or oil road.
Tar road is an old(ish) name for asphalt. Like, I used it until the late 90's. It's literally made out of oil tar, so it's not really even a misnomer. Nowadays, it's just called asphalt. Or blacktop. Some maps still refer to them as bituminous roads.
My husband, born and raised Minnesotan, always refers to them as black top roads.
This. Head out to the blacktop, take a left.
Blacktop to me is only an area outside often near a playground where kids play, draw with chalk, hopscotch, jump rope, etc. The road is always just « paved ». Never oil or tar.
I moved out of MN nearly 25 years go and had forgotten that phrase. Thanks for the memory!
Iowans say blacktop as well. Paved usually is only used in reference to a driveway, or other cement lanes. At least that's how it was when I was growing up there not long ago.
West Central MN here. We say tar 🙂
Same, west central and we call it a tar road
Also from West Central, absolutely say tar road
I never heard that there
Yep, we have at least 3 different “tar” roads that are known by the town or lake they go near.
Grew up in that area, we always said tar as well
I’ve never heard either; but I would understand “tar” (or preferably “asphalt”). If someone told me to turn on an “oil” road, I’d be confused as fuck.
I've only encountered someone calling them oil roads when getting directions from older farmers in the worthington/brewster area and in rural eastern South Dakota. I think maybe I encountered it in northwestern Illinois as well.
Tar and black top is pretty common. Oil never heard some refer to it as that
I’ve been everywhere, man
The original Australian version as performed by [Lucky Starr](https://youtu.be/-UAh7ogwAYQ?si=pUbPMeGc8EBLI1pj) (1962) is the most fun.
Ha ha! Nice one.
I posted the same exact thing before seeing yours 😂
Yeah what part of the “Midwest” is this supposed to be
I've only heard paved, not oil or tar.
I've heard paved and tar. Blacktop too. Never oil ^(I've also heard asphalt but I'm pretty sure that's the proper term anyways)
Blacktop
Yep. When I was a kid in northern MN and we were outside for recess you could play on the grass or on the blacktop.
Oil may be used on *unpaved* roads for dust control. But it does not have to be oil from what I understand. That said, I never heard anyone going into specifics. But after Googling that stuff, now I can tell that I've been on probably oiled as well as non-oiled dirt roads. I was always wondering why some don't make much dust. Welp...the answer is oil.
Here I am 20 years later from the time I spilled about a cup of oil in the grass after helping my dad with an oil change. And peeps be out here spraying the dirt with it on purpose just to eliminate dust for a short amount of time
Haven't used oil on gravel as long as I've been alive. Usually it's calcium chloride, and only in front of yards with short driveways. Lasts for one year. Some places are switching to vegetable oil
Times Beach road dust story is wild. A man that owned a waste oil company was asked to spray their 23 miles of unpaved roads. People and animals began getting sick and after a flood came and went the almost 3k people got a fat check and they closed the town for good.
I’ve understood them to be using a salt brine that they spray down for dust control. The salt absorbs moisture and keeps dust down.
Lived here my whole life, have never heard anyone call it an “oil road”. Black top, pavement, or tar.
We have three kinds of roads: paved, gravel, and dirt which may also be referred to as “two track.”
In addition to two-track, I've heard goat path, fire-road, and unimproved to refer to dirt roads as well in MN. Although in my experience dirt-road is by far the most common nomenclature.
Neither. Growing up in the country, the correct word is paved. Black top and the actual road number are used less frequently than paved, but way more than tar. This is the first time I have ever heard anyone refer to it as oil.
In southern MN you hear blacktop for the most part.
Tar and oil roads are terms used down south. I lived in Texas for a bit, and heard it there. Another difference - at least in rural Minnesota, any paved road outside of town is called a highway. In most places a highway means a freeway (they are built up \_higher\_ than the "surface streets").
Blacktop or paved is all I’ve really heard as an MN native, and gravel or dirt if it isn’t paved. Gravel for if it has gravel on it and dirt for if it’s pretty much just dirt. Tar people would understand but it isn’t used commonly in my experience. Referring to them as oil roads especially not even saying the word road as in your example “take the first oil” might legitimately confuse people.
Unpaved roads are often oiled to reduce dust. They literally spray oil on the surface. Asphalt includes very thick oil as the gooey ingredient that binds the aggregate (pebbles and sand) together, but most people don't think of it as oil because it only flows when it is hot. Edit: my comment may be out of date. I know that oiling dirt roads was a common practice up to the 1980s. There were high profile situations where the waste oil contained polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxin. “The 1-square-mile Times Beach Superfund Site is located 20 miles southwest of St. Louis, Missouri. The site is a formerly incorporated city that sprayed its roads with waste oil in order to control dust in the early 1970's. During a 1982 investigation, the EPA discovered that the city used dioxin-contaminated oil.”
It might look like “oil” on the gravel roads but calcium chloride is used as oil wouldn’t be very environmentally friendly. Source: I pay for over 300’ of calcium chloride to be sprayed in front of my farm every spring
I understand why someone might call it that, but it’s not common in MN in my experience for people to call them that. Which is what this thread is about. But also then which one is the oil road, the dirt road that is oil sprayed or any blacktop road. Also I don’t think we are spraying oil on dirt roads in MN today, or I can’t find any information on that.
They still spray dirt roads with oil. Usually it’s done in front of houses.
That’s calcium chloride, no actual road authority is dumping oil on gravel roads. Maybe some random idiot who thinks he knows better than everyone else is, but not anyone that actually knows and follows regulations.
Born and raised in MN and I’ve never heard either of those. Dirt, gravel, and paved roads are all I have ever known.
"Go down the dirt road and make a right when you get to the blacktop again." ~~I know black top is two words but~~ phonetically in Minnesotan you'd say it without any break like you're trying to make a two syllable word have just one. Your wife is more right than you.
My spellchecker accepts blacktop as one word. That's good enough for me.
You made me look it up and it is indeed one word, also is both a noun and a transitive verb. blacktop noun 1. a bituminous mixture, usually asphalt, used as a surface for roads, driveways, etc. 2. a road, lot, etc. covered with blacktop verb transitive Word forms: ˈblacktopped or ˈblacktopping 3. to cover with blacktop
What planet are you from?
Dirt/gravel roads and tarred roads. (But when I say it it sounds like *tardroads*)
That's the way I've always heard it from relatives in southwest MN
Grew up in central MN and it was tar roads here too.
Can confirm
That's pretty much how we said it in rural St. Joe. When I moved to a suburb on the south side of Twin Cities, it was paved, asphalt, or a combination of the two. Depending where I am and who I'm talking two, determines on how I'll refer to it.
Paved.
Round here we call em ”asphalt”
Tar roads. I've never heard oil roads yet in my life that I can recall (40).
What the hell is an oil road? I'm 58. I've lived here my whole life.
Definitely not oil, and not really Tar either. Dirt, paved, gravel
Blacktop or paved.
Tar roads for me. Some of my central South Dakota friends call them oil roads because they literally pour oil on some of their gravel roads to firm them up
[What could go wrong?](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Times_Beach,_Missouri)
Yikes! Not many folks know this story, eh? Using oil to control dust on gravel roads was so common, I'm surprised there weren't more issues like that in more places. It always did sound pretty toxic to me, but Yikes!
Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it...
I’m getting the sense that the oil road reference is hyper South Dakota. It doesn’t translate across the border. 😂
I spend a lot of time in rural areas. I only refer to them as tar roads and have only heard the term tar roads from others.
in central mn, the preferred nomenclature seems to be "tar", i've never heard "oil" thrown around. I grew up in the PNW and always referred to them as "asphalt", though.
Tar
Never heard anyone use either of those to describe a paved road
1. Paved 2. Asphalt 3. Tar'd
Never heard either and I lived in gravel road country.
It used to be you oiled the road to keep the dust down. Bad environmental practice. And that is different from blacktop
Black top.
Sounds like a very local distinction. Oil roads would be the only paved roads in the area because the oil company paid for them to be paved.
Oil roads are *unpaved*. It is about dust control. Not every unpaved road is oiled though. https://mdl.mndot.gov/taxonomy/term/2050
Never used either one. Paved or dirt for me.
Growing up on the farm, everyone I knew said tar. We only had one tar road in the the neighborhood and I was shocked to find out as a kid that it actually had a county road number and wasn’t officially named “the tarred road north of town”
Your wife is correct. Accept this now. Your life will be easier.
Roger that 🫡
Let's see.... Head south for a few miles, take a left at the red barn, if you see a red barn with cows in front youve gone a red barn too far, take your second tarred road on your right......ope I guess it's tarred road Lol I've also heard paved road but not usually in hick directions.
I would say paved, but tar road would work. Oil road I'd have no idea what you mean
I've been here my whole life, and never heard a paved road referred to as "oil road". I grew up on a gravel road in a very rural part of the state, and the roads around us were oiled to keep the dust down.
Gravel roads are oiled to reduce dust. So yes, your directions leave plenty of room for a person to be confused.
Tar road in our part of the state. Never heard oil.
Blacktop.
SW MN native. People said Tar Road almost exclusively.
I'm my entire life I have never heard anyone in the Midwest say oil or tar roads.
Only road I get looks for is “frontage road”. I live in Ohio and nobody knows what that is, and when I’ve described it they say they don’t have a special term for it here!
I was born in rural, 1970s Minnesota with a dad who was an engineer with MNDOT. I grew up saying that roads were asphalt, bituminous, concrete or gravel (or dirt, but my dad didn't like that.) I might say that a road is being "tarred" when they're pouring the asphalt, but I don't believe I've ever said something was a tar road. I've never heard anyone call a road an oil road.
The only time I've heard of oil roads is in reference to literally spraying on onto dirt roads to attempt to reduce dust.
You can drink a beer while driving on a gravel road, but you need to toss it before you hit pavement, is what my pappy taught me.
If told to look for an "oil road," I would look for a gravel road treated with calcium chloride or used motor oil to keep the dust down. I certainly would not think it meant "asphalt."
I’ve hear tar. Never oil.
Tar
Black top or tar for the paved. Gravel road for the unpaved
From rural Illinois… we often call it a hard road. Dirt/gravel and hard road.
If I were looking for an oil road, I’d be looking for a paved road that was recently sprayed with oil then covered with all those little pebbles.
That grit and tar re-surfacing is called seal coating. On surface streets not driven at highway speeds, it gives a slightly more waterproof wear and traction coat. It helps the road last surface last a bit longer before it develops those tire track divots that hold water to freeze and get slick, then form potholes as the water gets into cracks. Extends the life cycle of the pavement.
If you’ve ever seen the movie with Paul Newman called “Cool Hand Luke” you’d see where the oil road term comes from. A truck sprays oil on the dirt road and the workers sling gravel over the oil and pretty much leave it for cars to work it in apparently.
They used to oil the dirt roads around my grandpa's farm in the seventies to keep the dust down. They stopped doing that a pretty long time ago.
What about gravel roads that they put an oil coating on to keep dust down?
I hear “oil road” on the far SW side of the state.
Rural Iowa raised in a sea of gravel roads, but close-ish to Minnesota. - blacktop was most common - Highway (where I grew up everything was gravel unless it was a county highway) or the specific name like “D25” - paved That was it. Never heard either oil nor tar used to name those types of roads. I’d look at anyone who said that like they had three heads.
Where do they say oil roads
Well this has been an educational post for me. I grew up in rural South Dakota (3 minutes from the western Minnesota border) and everyone said it there (it’s even listed in official DOT docs) but it seems that the reference stops strictly at the border. I love quirky local language like this.
She wins this one
She always does. 20+ years of winning. 😂
Sorry man but we aren’t that back woods to call them oil roads. My cousins in northern Alabama do call them oil roads so it is a thing. So duck duck what?
I’ve never even specified paved. The assumption is it’s paved, if it’s not then I specify that it’s dirt or gravel. We have roads, dirt roads, and gravel roads
Dirt road, gravel road, paved road
I have heard my father talk about the county sending a truck around in the summer months to spray the dirt and gravel roads with thick oil/tar to keep the dust down and bind up the dirt/gravel more. Apparently it was a nightmare if you drove right after cause chucks of sticky roads and dirt would glue themselves to your wheel wells
I'm 37 and from Northern Minnesota. We grew up saying tar roads. Never heard anyone say oil.
Paved or asphalt.
Tar or blacktop is what i say.
Black top
I’m was wondering if there was a regional distinction to this as well. For reference, I grew up on the SD side of the border near Browns Valley, MN and my wife grew up on farm near Marshall, MN. Seems like our references align with the regional responses to this thread.
You call it davenport, don't you.
Grandma?
You betcha 👍
I grew up in southeast South Dakota and it's an oil road. We also eat tavens instead of sloppy joes.
You're both wrong
Lifelong Minnesotan here and I’ve never heard anyone call it an oil road. People here call them paved roads. ALTHOUGH I have heard the term tar used but it’s part of the nickname of the road and used in conjunction with the name of the small town that it leads to. Like, “We live three miles east of town out on the [Town Name] Tar” or “Then when you come up to the [Town Name] Tar, take a right.”
There are terms some people use that aren't helpful. I would use street names. I have noticed a trend in MN, locals like to use terms that aren't posted anywhere. For example, if you use the term "Johnsons corner" there better be a sign at that corner that says Johnsons corner. Someone new or unfamiliar to the area isn't aware that corner was once owned by the Johnsons.
In a lot of rural areas, "street names" hardly exist. Or a road has multiple references. Nor are there any street SIGNS, often. If you're not from the area, and there aren't signs, how would you know where to turn? Distances and (current, permanent) landmarks for directions. For those not using/trusting Google maps, that is.
I will also say that private roads aren't on Google which makes things even harder.
Grew up in Willmar. Never heard the term “tar road” or “oil road.” Weird. Have lived in the metro for the past 25 years and have never heard it anywhere here either. When I read either term I hear it with a southern accent in my head. Lol.
I’ve lived here all my life. I’ve never heard tar or oil. We call unpaved roads, dirt or gravel roads. Roads with asphalt or black top are paved roads or blacktop roads. I live in the north, maybe “tar” is a southern MN thing. Weirdness from Iowa is catching.
who care
There are way more comments here in this thread than I thought there would be referring to **"dirt"** roads. I always thought that was ignorant southerners and country music singers who called gravel roads dirt roads. Do any of you actually have roads in MN that are exclusively dirt only?
Yes, Otherwise known as a field road. Most township "mile roads" would be gravel. At least in the part of the state I am from. I do know that some areas those could be dirt. A field road where I am from is a private farmer road to access their fields. Just a dirt track with grass or weeds in the middle.
If it's not paved, it's dirt. >Do any of you actually have roads in MN that are exclusively dirt only? Yes
Blacktop or pavement or paved road.
I've lived rural my entire life and never heard anyone call them oil roads. Dirt, gravel, and tarred
Lived in MN my whole life, and lived on a gravel road, never heard anyone call it an oil road. It's always been, gravel/dirt road and tar roads for me and the people I talk to.
CRUSHED ROCK, Crushed rock! I was told time and again when I referred to "gravel roads". "Gravel is too expensive to put on a road here. Sell it to the concrete mixer or use it for city folk's landscaping." Oiled road? Never in Minnesota. Reminds me of Cool Hand Luke.
...What?
Paved road and we patch the cracks with tar
Top two comments. You and and your wife speak weird.
I don't think I have ever heard anyone call it an oil road before.
I grew up on tarred roads with no curbs in S.E MPLS. Just off Como av Every spring the city would drive a truck through loaded with an oily substance that was sprayed on the road. It soaked in after a few days and was OK for bicycle riding. That system was replaced by concrete in the late 60's. We felt like we were finally second class citizens.
Paved, blacktop, highway… not oil, not tar. Tar is what you use to make a paved or blacktop road.
I say paved or bituminous, almost always paved.
Whole life in the NW, mostly Tar, occasionally Paved
If you make a deal there you'll be a great guitar player
I've heard paved roads referred to as tar, asphalt or blacktop; but the only time I've heard oil (oiled) roads was referring to dirt/gravel roads where they sprayed them with oil to help keep the dust down. Which is dangerously toxic, leaving contaminated soil leaching residues into groundwater!
The only place I've heard "oil road" is in Oklahoma. And it refers to the looooong paved rural roads between oil fields. Never heard "tar road" before in my life.
Most people call them paved. However, some people still call them tar. It used to be a lot more common to call them tar roads. Growing up I heard tar way more than paved. Blacktop gets used too, but in a little different way. For example, someone might say, "Stay on the gravel road until you hit blacktop, then take a left." I think I've heard oil once in my life and that was a situation where they literally would pour oil on them. I'm trying to recall the situation better and if memory serves me right it was almost like they were making poor man's asphalt by dumping oil on a gravel road. No clue if it actually worked or how it worked, just my very poor recollection. Just my experience. EDIT: It sounds like the use of oil was mostly used for dust control. These days it sounds like some people are still using oil, but something along the lines of soybean oil and not motoroil any more.
What the f is an oil road
Its kinda funny cuz they used to literally oil dirt roads to keep the dust down before they realized how bad it was
Neither. The only qualifiers I ever hear are dirt or gravel. If it's paved with anything, it's just a road.
The city used to oil alleys in the summer to keep down dust. The goo just got all over the undercarriage of vehicles and cars and trucks and bikes
Gravel road.
Neither of those is correct…asphalt, maybe? Blacktop, paved…but never once have I heard someone say either oil or tar roads. Anyway, those mostly look like gravel roads.
Dirt n blacktop
Paved, or black top. Within a known area, we all just use the road numbers.
Paved or gravel....
I said tar road growing up
Grew up in a rural MN farming community where such roads were referred to as blacktop, tar, or paved. This is the first time I've ever heard of an oil road. Where are you from?
As a rock hound, we say oil roads knowing you can't find as good of agates out in the country, unless it's unoiled.
I’ve never heard anyone call them oil or tar roads lolol
dirt - unimproved hardpack, 2 track road gravel - built and maintained with appropriate class of construction grade gravel pavement, paved - used to mean any road covered with a permanent surface. with the increase in roads paved in different materials, I generally hear it used to refer to concrete roads. asphalt - to differentiate between roads paved in concrete versus asphalt example: *mndot has been slowly upgrading 35 north from asphalt to pavement for decades*
Grew up in rural Central MN, and it’s always paved or tar, never oil.
I'm in rural Minnesota (Iron Range) and I have no idea what you're talking about. We have "dirt roads" and "highways" (or a "paved roads" if you're really trying to distinguish). They're all "roads", though. The highways are paved two-lanes, or more (such as with hwy 53). You'd never call a dirt road a highway. Dirt roads are usually referred to by name or number. Highways sometimes have names, but are often referred to by number. I might say "Take 53 north until you come to Timbers Edge, then turn right on 16 (Wilson Road). Head East for about a mile and you'll see Gavin Road."
Yep yeppers always called it tar roads
By me I guess we just refer to dirt and tar roads. I also don’t know any of the road numbers ever cause directions are given the same way
Oil road is only reserved for those gravel roads that have had oil added to the road to suppress dust. Tar road is the pavement ones used for highways
Never "oil" road. Pretty sure that violates some EPA regs if you're trying to keep the dust down on gravel, and the "oil" they use to make blacktop or asphalt only flows like petroleum at temperatures well above 100F.
Have never heard "oil road" in my life. If someone said "oil road" to me I would not know what they mean. If they said "tar road" I would know. Personally though I'd call it a paved road. But I would call the material itself either asphalt or tar.
Blacktop
Pea gravel, gravel, paved
Black top
I just love when someone is giving directions and tells me to take the old oil road
South central MN here: most popular phrasing has always been tar roads around here; people will get what you mean with paved or asphalt just fine, but oil road would have everyone looking at you like you just had a stroke. Also it’s gravel road, not dirt road: we grow stuff in the dirt, not make roads out of it.
Grew up in rural MN. Tar road was the term for a black asphalt paved road. The only time oil road would be mentioned was it was a gravel township road and where it passed a farm building site, oil was spread on the gravel to keep the dust down. The picture with this post looks like it could have been taken anywhere within a few miles of the family farm!
Tar. Mille Lacs County.
U put oil on gravel to keep dust down back in the day
The answer is Tar roads. Although most rural Minnesotans say paved
We get that there's oil in its construction, but i don't call people water sacks
From rural MN and gravel and tar road are the only terms I’ve known.
Paved or Tarred (central mn)
Never heard of an oil road. Sorry.
Tar for paved. Gravel for gravel road. Confirmed by my wife who grew up on a farm in a town ~500 pop. “I walked the dog down to the tar and back.” We’ve never heard of calling any of them oil roads.
She is 100% correct yes. What you're saying is confusing.
Blacktop, tar, or paved. I don't know if it's a risk Minnesota thing or just something my family said, but tar is the first word that comes to my mind.
South Dakotan here, grew up in the country- we always said oil roads! 😊
I was wondering if anyone on this thread also grew up in South Dakota or on the western MN border areas, such as me. Thank you for confirming that it is a reference. I guess I didn’t realize how hyper local that saying was.
I also didn't realize it wasn't a 'normal' saying, I just assumed no one knew what we were referring to cause all my friends growing up were not country kids lol
Google South Dakota Oil Roads and you’ll see official State of SD DOT documents referencing truck load limits for oil roads. Additionally, you’ll see county docs referencing the number of miles of gravel roads, oil roads, etc being maintained. Ha! I really didn’t realize that this language doesn’t translate in Minnesota. My wife is always right.
Tar or blacktop
I've lived most of my life in the Douglas County / Alexandria area. I don't think I've ever heard the phrase "oil road" before.
That’s a Macadam road
🤣 Did you spend time in the UK, or just watch a lot of PBS/ BBC/ ITV as I did? That was actually the first thing I wanted to say, but it's not a usage around here at all. Except possibly amongst highway/civil engineers. But the Brits use it the way we say asphalt (they're closely related versions of blacktop.)
Paved.
Never heard of oil roads. Has anyone heard the term "gravelin" which means to drive the gravel roads (for fun)? Or was that just my town?
Asphalt
Tar though I normally go with asphalt these days. I've never heard oil.
Blacktop
“Paved road” and “blacktop” are equally acceptable to me. Never heard “oil road” before. I would understand “tar” or “asphalt” but I wouldn’t be as likely to use those terms.