People flood Erb Street landfill wanting a piece of the corduroy road

Less than 15 minutes after the gates opened at the Erb Street landfill in Waterloo on Friday morning, police told disappointed drivers in the long lineup that they were too far back along the road to get a free piece of wood from the city's historic corduroy road. 

In the end, it only took 27 minutes from start to finish for an assembly line of workers to queue incoming vehicles into a single lane, load one piece of log into each trunk, and shoo the drivers on their way. 

The 200-year-old corduroy road was discovered in Uptown Waterloo this March during LRT construction.

It is likely one of Waterloo's first-ever European-built roads and would have been used to cross a swampy patch along King Street, where Laurel Creek would have once flowed through what is now Waterloo's central business district. 

The road became a tourist attraction of sorts, before it was dug up and made available for public pick up on Friday. 

Though a one-piece per car limit was in place, the 100 two-foot pieces of decayed wood were snatched up by local residents within minutes. 

Elle Pyke from Kitchener said that at around 6:20 a.m., hers was the 90th car in the lineup.

​"Not very much would get me up at 5:50 in the morning, but a log road did it," she said, proudly pointing to a chunk of wood on the back seat.

"I'd like to restore it and perhaps display it in my house. I think it's just really neat to have something from the city like that."

Craig Galbraith and Andrea LeBlanc of the Guelph band Corduroy Road were determined to get a piece of their namesake.

"We were following on Twitter that they were going to be giving the pieces away, so I paid careful attention," Galbraith said.

"I think we were one of the very, very, very last people, because of the big lineups this morning, to get a piece of this history."

LeBlanc said the band doesn't plan on preserving the log, but will bring it up on stage with them for as long as it lasts.

Residents weren't the only ones excited about the old road. Staff at the waste facility considered themselves lucky to have the chance to give the logs away. 

"It's been a real, big team effort," said Marie Thiel. "There were a lot of people involved with this...and it was just a very feel-good kind of morning to be able to give back to the community."

Thiel and her colleague Melanie Dool were responsible for keeping drivers moving through the queue at a steady pace.

Those who came for a piece of history were told to stay in their vehicles and pop their trunks so that staff could stick a hunk of wood inside.

"I thought it would be busy, but I didn't think it would be this busy," Dool said. "I was happy to be a part of it. I think it's great."