Callaway County has received a $300,000 industrial infrastructure grant from the Missouri Department of Economic Development to improve a county road and help create jobs.
The county road improvement project is designed to support expansion of OCCI Inc., a Callaway County bridge construction firm that promises to add at least 30 new permanent private jobs.
Callaway County Presiding Commissioner Gary Jungermann said the $300,000 state grant will pay about one-third of the cost of widening and paving about 1.75 miles of County Road 256 from State Route J near Millersburg to its intersection with County Road 257. The OCCI firm is located near the intersection of the two county roads.
Jungermann said the county will use its graders and dump trucks to widen the roadway and prepare it to be paved. The county also will replace culverts under the road. The paved road will be 30 feet wide with 15 feet of shoulder on each side.
"When this is completed, we will seek competitive bids to apply asphalt on the widened road," Jungermann said.
The request for the $300,000 state grant was written by Bruce Hackmann, president of the Fulton Area Development Corporation (FADC).