Sealcoating and Asphalt in Cornell, WI

45.3 percent of Cornell was built before 1960, with the largest single decade being the 1970s. Post-war drives are the awkward middle of this trade: old enough that the surface is finished, young enough that the base underneath is often still worth saving. What it needs varies house by house, which is why we would rather look at it than quote from the year on the deed.

Mostly single-family, at 83.4 percent detached, with a small share of duplexes and multi-unit buildings mixed in. That second group is the one where sealing pays back fastest, because a surface carrying six vehicles instead of two finds the edge of its wear layer years earlier.

At 1,452 people, Cornell is big enough to have both halves of this trade in it. On the residential side the work is drives. On the commercial side it is surfaces that carry other people's vehicles, which brings striping, accessible stalls and storm structures into the same bid. A lot like that wants walking before anyone puts a number on it.

Cornell sits on the Chippewa River upstream of Lake Wissota, where Highways 64 and 27 meet and the Scenic River Road up from Chippewa Falls ends. The country around it is glacial: rolling forested moraine, kettle ponds, eskers and kames left by the Chippewa Lobe. Brunet Island State Park sits at the north end of Park Road where the Fisher River joins the Chippewa.