In a lot of small towns, the wooden sidewalks were more in the line of wooden porches, part of the adjacent building. That is why there were often several steps up from the street, and steps where the "sidewalk" changed levels.
By 1920, some (but by no means all) of the wooden walkways might have been replaced with concrete. If the local bank and the county courthouse were masonry buildings, they probably had the first concrete sidewalks in town.
Towns in Nevada had concrete sidewalks for a very simple reason. No local timber. Timber that was shipped in was used in the mines, not for walkways. 100% of the timber for wood sidewalks would have had to be shipped in. Only 5% or so of the large-aggregate sidewalk concrete (the cement) would have been imported; the rest could be collected and screened to size locally. Then, too, after several serious fires that all but destroyed towns, local codes were written to favor concrete and masonry construction.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
