As a native of North Mississippi, I grew up with the term “borrow pit,” and I was born quite a bit later than 1893. After moving away years ago, I realized that my home state was often last to accept new trends. I look forward to the arrival of “bar ditch” somewhere around mid-century.
Scott F:
June 19th, 2012 at 9:24 pm
I grew up in Kansas – they just called them ditches. Lived in OK for 2 years and all they talked about were bar ditches. When I naively asked how that was different from a regular ditch, they all looked at me like I was crazy. No one could ever explain this, so I read this with great enjoyment and some nostalgia
Bud Short:
July 17th, 2012 at 5:34 pm
I am a civil engineer and have been designing and building roads for more than 35 years. The article is correct. The ditches are cut and the spoil dirt is mounded up between the ditches to raise the road grade. The dirt is “borrowed” from the ditches to create the road crown therefore “borrow ditch” shortened in the south the way they do in the south is now “bar ditch”.
David A.:
August 24th, 2012 at 8:25 pm
Well, Bud is on the right track in explaining what the term is. The term is spelled “borrow ditch” when committed to writing but when using the unique oral skills of a true Southerner it is phonetically pronounced as illustrated above “Bar-aahd ditch”. Unfortunately those who are not used to hearing such dialect think they are hearing “bar ditch”. Thus the confusion.
Starla Medlin:
January 9th, 2013 at 1:19 pm
we here in texas believed it was called this because that is where you usually ended up after a night at the bars drinking and partying.
terri@texascuisine.com:
January 9th, 2013 at 1:56 pm
It must be true they had it on the internet…
Russ:
June 18th, 2013 at 5:22 am
I grew up in Missouri and we learned about bar ditches as barrow ditch from the digging of a parallel ditch to a wayward river or waterway to form a levee to contain the water in times of flood. My Grandparents hab a farm and the bar ditch seperated their farm to protect it from winter floods of the river a mile or so from the house.
When I was a child growing up in Texas in the 1950s, I asked my grandmother Olivia Bozeman Adams, who was born in Texas in 1891, why the ditches beside a road were called bar ditches. She explained immediately that when communities built a road they dug two ditches using dredges and mules and piled the removed soil in the middle, trampelled it down and added gravel if available. She recalled that they were originally called ‘borry’ ditches by the people making the roads in her community when she was a child. Many Texas still pronounce the word ‘borrow’ as ‘borry.’
Sharon R. Flores:
November 19th, 2013 at 9:01 am
hahaha, don’t know why I woke up at 3:00 this AM and remembered my dad calling it a bar ditch (as in, We found you in a bar ditch; that’s why you’re our daughter). Yep, I’m from Texas. Thanks for the memories!
Tom Sylvester:
March 17th, 2014 at 8:22 pm
I also am an engineer. I have heard the old horse drawn skips or skids were also called “barrows” similar to wheelbarrows. The skid could be lowered (or the wheel raised) to pick up a load. When full, the wheel was than lowered and the horses could haul it to the to the mound between the ditches for the roadway. Barrow ditches thence were the places that the barrows gathered their material.
So I guess you can say that the barrow borrowed the dirt from the barrow (borrow) ditch to make the barrow (mound) for the road.
R. C. White:
August 7th, 2014 at 2:33 pm
Tom, in my part of Oklahoma, “barrow” words were often pronounced “bar”, especially when I was a boy (born in 1935). Other “arrow” words rhymed: We played with “bows and ars”, used a “har” (harrow) to rake our plowed fields; ate the “bonemar” (marrow) out of beef bones; and drove some pretty “nar” (narrow) roads with bar ditches on either side. And carried dirt and other stuff in “wheelbars”. To us, “borrow ditch”, “barrow ditch” and “bar ditch” would sound pretty much the same.
E L Caple:
February 1st, 2015 at 12:20 am
Civil engineers use the term “borrow pits” for the stock or fish ponds you see at almost every major highway interchange. It takes thousands of cubic yards of fill to build up the bridge approaches for a highway interchage. A friend of mine worked summers in college for a “dirt” or excavation company doing interstate highway work. His job was to approach farmers as to how they might like to have a nice cool stock pond or fishing lake for the grandkids, which was the source of all the fill they needed. Much cheaper than trucking it in.
D L Farrington:
May 8th, 2015 at 7:37 pm
I grew up in rural Colorado hearing the ditches along the roadway called “bar ditches” and occasionally some old timer called them a “borrow pit.” Someone once explained to me the concept of borrowing dirt from the ditch or pit to mound up the road, hence the name. I just read a memo from a civil engineer who referred to the same thing as a “barrow ditch,” which is the first time I recall seeing that usage. Which is why I googled it.
Richsand:
June 10th, 2015 at 6:58 pm
I once heard that a Bar Ditch was named because a Sickle Bar (on a tractor) was used to cut the grass along side of roads and the cutter would skim over the top of the ditch.
I also know of many times those coming from the local bar ran into the ditch. Take your pick.
A barrow is also a castrated boar hog. Borrow is the root word, that has been bastardized to “bar”
Elaine Gibson:
June 14th, 2016 at 2:16 pm
We are visiting in Oklahoma and trying to figure out why we always called them bar ditches. My dad is 91 and he didn’t know. This makes perfect sense. That’s how the roadways are made on flat land. Although I do like the other explanation: my uncle frequented bars and he often ended up in the ditch.
Vickie:
January 1st, 2020 at 1:04 pm
My dad use to say “all the beer bottles thrown in the ditch” was how the bar ditch got its name
Kathleen:
April 6th, 2020 at 5:06 pm
Very interesting.
Kish:
June 28th, 2020 at 11:43 am
I grew up in the flat part of Texas where even a two-inch rain has no where to go. The country roads are high and the bar ditches are big and wide so the roads don’t flood. I live in an OKC suburb now, on a hill with a drainage issue between my house and next door. Yesterday I finished hand digging my mini bar ditch to divert the excess runoff from uphill along the property line out to the street instead of eroding my AC and generator pads. French drains clog up quick in fine clay soil!
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John:
June 13th, 2012 at 1:31 pm
As a native of North Mississippi, I grew up with the term “borrow pit,” and I was born quite a bit later than 1893. After moving away years ago, I realized that my home state was often last to accept new trends. I look forward to the arrival of “bar ditch” somewhere around mid-century.
Scott F:
June 19th, 2012 at 9:24 pm
I grew up in Kansas – they just called them ditches. Lived in OK for 2 years and all they talked about were bar ditches. When I naively asked how that was different from a regular ditch, they all looked at me like I was crazy. No one could ever explain this, so I read this with great enjoyment and some nostalgia
Bud Short:
July 17th, 2012 at 5:34 pm
I am a civil engineer and have been designing and building roads for more than 35 years. The article is correct. The ditches are cut and the spoil dirt is mounded up between the ditches to raise the road grade. The dirt is “borrowed” from the ditches to create the road crown therefore “borrow ditch” shortened in the south the way they do in the south is now “bar ditch”.
David A.:
August 24th, 2012 at 8:25 pm
Well, Bud is on the right track in explaining what the term is. The term is spelled “borrow ditch” when committed to writing but when using the unique oral skills of a true Southerner it is phonetically pronounced as illustrated above “Bar-aahd ditch”. Unfortunately those who are not used to hearing such dialect think they are hearing “bar ditch”. Thus the confusion.
Starla Medlin:
January 9th, 2013 at 1:19 pm
we here in texas believed it was called this because that is where you usually ended up after a night at the bars drinking and partying.
terri@texascuisine.com:
January 9th, 2013 at 1:56 pm
It must be true they had it on the internet…
Russ:
June 18th, 2013 at 5:22 am
I grew up in Missouri and we learned about bar ditches as barrow ditch from the digging of a parallel ditch to a wayward river or waterway to form a levee to contain the water in times of flood. My Grandparents hab a farm and the bar ditch seperated their farm to protect it from winter floods of the river a mile or so from the house.
John W. Bales:
September 29th, 2013 at 10:59 am
When I was a child growing up in Texas in the 1950s, I asked my grandmother Olivia Bozeman Adams, who was born in Texas in 1891, why the ditches beside a road were called bar ditches. She explained immediately that when communities built a road they dug two ditches using dredges and mules and piled the removed soil in the middle, trampelled it down and added gravel if available. She recalled that they were originally called ‘borry’ ditches by the people making the roads in her community when she was a child. Many Texas still pronounce the word ‘borrow’ as ‘borry.’
Sharon R. Flores:
November 19th, 2013 at 9:01 am
hahaha, don’t know why I woke up at 3:00 this AM and remembered my dad calling it a bar ditch (as in, We found you in a bar ditch; that’s why you’re our daughter). Yep, I’m from Texas. Thanks for the memories!
Tom Sylvester:
March 17th, 2014 at 8:22 pm
I also am an engineer. I have heard the old horse drawn skips or skids were also called “barrows” similar to wheelbarrows. The skid could be lowered (or the wheel raised) to pick up a load. When full, the wheel was than lowered and the horses could haul it to the to the mound between the ditches for the roadway. Barrow ditches thence were the places that the barrows gathered their material.
So I guess you can say that the barrow borrowed the dirt from the barrow (borrow) ditch to make the barrow (mound) for the road.
R. C. White:
August 7th, 2014 at 2:33 pm
Tom, in my part of Oklahoma, “barrow” words were often pronounced “bar”, especially when I was a boy (born in 1935). Other “arrow” words rhymed: We played with “bows and ars”, used a “har” (harrow) to rake our plowed fields; ate the “bonemar” (marrow) out of beef bones; and drove some pretty “nar” (narrow) roads with bar ditches on either side. And carried dirt and other stuff in “wheelbars”. To us, “borrow ditch”, “barrow ditch” and “bar ditch” would sound pretty much the same.
E L Caple:
February 1st, 2015 at 12:20 am
Civil engineers use the term “borrow pits” for the stock or fish ponds you see at almost every major highway interchange. It takes thousands of cubic yards of fill to build up the bridge approaches for a highway interchage. A friend of mine worked summers in college for a “dirt” or excavation company doing interstate highway work. His job was to approach farmers as to how they might like to have a nice cool stock pond or fishing lake for the grandkids, which was the source of all the fill they needed. Much cheaper than trucking it in.
D L Farrington:
May 8th, 2015 at 7:37 pm
I grew up in rural Colorado hearing the ditches along the roadway called “bar ditches” and occasionally some old timer called them a “borrow pit.” Someone once explained to me the concept of borrowing dirt from the ditch or pit to mound up the road, hence the name. I just read a memo from a civil engineer who referred to the same thing as a “barrow ditch,” which is the first time I recall seeing that usage. Which is why I googled it.
Richsand:
June 10th, 2015 at 6:58 pm
I once heard that a Bar Ditch was named because a Sickle Bar (on a tractor) was used to cut the grass along side of roads and the cutter would skim over the top of the ditch.
I also know of many times those coming from the local bar ran into the ditch. Take your pick.
Charles:
May 18th, 2016 at 10:18 pm
A barrow is also a castrated boar hog. Borrow is the root word, that has been bastardized to “bar”
Elaine Gibson:
June 14th, 2016 at 2:16 pm
We are visiting in Oklahoma and trying to figure out why we always called them bar ditches. My dad is 91 and he didn’t know. This makes perfect sense. That’s how the roadways are made on flat land. Although I do like the other explanation: my uncle frequented bars and he often ended up in the ditch.
Vickie:
January 1st, 2020 at 1:04 pm
My dad use to say “all the beer bottles thrown in the ditch” was how the bar ditch got its name
Kathleen:
April 6th, 2020 at 5:06 pm
Very interesting.
Kish:
June 28th, 2020 at 11:43 am
I grew up in the flat part of Texas where even a two-inch rain has no where to go. The country roads are high and the bar ditches are big and wide so the roads don’t flood. I live in an OKC suburb now, on a hill with a drainage issue between my house and next door. Yesterday I finished hand digging my mini bar ditch to divert the excess runoff from uphill along the property line out to the street instead of eroding my AC and generator pads. French drains clog up quick in fine clay soil!