One square yard of asphalt that is 1 inch thick weighs 110 pounds, so 36 inches thick is 3,960 pounds per cubic yard, which is nearly 2 tons. A total of 1,548 tons of asphalt makes a 1-mile stretch of road 24 feet long at a thickness of 2 inches.
One ton of asphalt, at 2 inches thick, makes 8.78 square yards of roadway. At 1 inch thick, the same asphalt makes more than 17 square yards.
The first true asphalt road in the United States was laid in front of city hall in Newark, N.J., in 1870 by Belgian chemist Edmund J. DeSmedt. His design was based upon similar pavement placed on a French highway in 1872. DeSmedt also paved Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C.
