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Post a comment Contact webmasterThis bridge was demolished in April 2013.
The bridge is very pretty. After spending a couple hours on the bridge,it was clear that there was no danger if you were on foot. It is a great place to visit and explore.
Looks like on the center of the bridge they have an American flag that lights up at night.
They are currently behind the Kawanis fairground, right by the Griffin airport, and the driving range/second hole of the Griffin City Park golf course. If you turn at the fairgrounds, there is a dirt road that keeps ongoing--follow it, and the bridge parts are right before the woods--just a month ago my children and I explored them.
This bridge has generated quite a bit of conversation, so I decided to visit.
It certainly looks like a cable-stayed bridge, but in fact, it is not a cable-stayed bridge. It is on private property, and after talking with the owner, he explained the bridge. He's in steel fabrication, and calls it a "beam-style" bridge, built by his father-in-law, 47 years ago.
He says he attached the cables on the side himself, and although they look like cable stays, they are there to keep his wife from accidently driving off the bridge, 30 feet below into Lookout Creek. Closer examination that I made indicates they do not support the weight of the bridge mid-section at all. If you look closely at Pictures 9, 17, 22 and 55 of the pics I took, you can see how the beams actually absorb all of the weight.. in fact, they have developed a sag in the middle. The owner is aware of that, and is working to fix it. After 47 years, they don't show any signs of undue stress.
He says the county condemned it several years ago, but lifted the condemnation after ending the county's maintenance right about where the entrance pics are. Frankly, I don't think the county wanted the responsibility.
I visited here yesterday, it hasn't changed much in 4 years. I captured some more photos of the tunnel. Still looks to be in decent shape though perhaps the creek running threw the tunnel has gotten worse. There is also a hugh sign of a lot of visitors visiting the tunnel which is good in ways, but I worry about the tunnel being ruined or damaged by them. A lot of four wheelers seam to use it to get from one side of the mountain to the other. I think it would be great if the silver comet trail had a extension that took you up to the tunnel, threw it, and then back down to the trail on the other side. Would make for a more scenery and fun ride threw the paulding wildlife management area and would help to preserve the tunnel. If anyone is interested in photos I have about 20+ just contact me.
Lindsay, nice reflection shot, thanks for sharing!
Turned out beautiful! Wanted to share.
Essentially just looks like a massive caisson/lolly column if you ask me.
I have to agree with Mr./Ms. Anonymous. I believe the center pier was cast in place just like the fixed span columns.
From what I've seen on this web site I think the central pier was always encased in steel.(iron ?) Anyway, beautiful bridge.
As of 2/5/13 at noon, this bridge has been closed with dim prospects of re-opening.
http://www.times-herald.com/Local/20130206ArncoBridgeClosing-MOS
Also, location should be adjusted slightly:
33.416539,-84.852034
MODERNE/NON-HISTORIQUE!
Hurrah! Hurrah! A UCEB come and see. Hurrah! Hurrah! Concrete will set you free.
So we sang the chorus from Atlanta to the sea, while spotting UCEBs in Georgia.
MODERNE/NON HISTORIQUE
http://www.walb.com/Category/240202/video-landing-page?clipId=8169140&autostart=true
Video of first main arch span coming down.... Sad.
oops, I see that Meeks Road is a county road. Sorry about that. So I guess the bridge is either maintained by the county or by a private party?
Is this bridge privately owned and maintained? Is Meeks Road a private road, a county road or a state road?
When I said I liked bridges painted to stand out from their surroundings, this isn't what I meant.
Couple of clarifications: this bridge connects Gwinnett county to present day city of johns creek, fulton county. Alpharetta is several miles to the west. Just because your mail is from alpharetta does not mean you are located in that city. When the bridge was built, north fulton county was milton county. That changed in 1932 when milton co was taken over by Fulton co. Cherokee county took parts of milton co to the west and north. The pipeline is carrying water. If you put your ear to it you can hear water flowing.
The phone numbers posted on the bridge are not correct. How do I contact a bridge tender to schedule an opening?
Interesting. The Whipple span appears to have the same portal bracing as that Mill Creek Bridge in Fort Scott, Kansas that many of us have been pondering. Of course, I suspect both bridges were built by different companies, but perhaps the companies obtained materials from the same fabricator.
I'm removing the "railroad" category from this bridge. I am now convinced it was not used for the Lockheed nuclear site railroad.
The final point in convincing me is the terrain. I looked at the topographical data. From the bridge, the road north climbs much to steeply for a conventional railroad. The road south isn't quite as extreme, but still a serious slope for a railroad. The road to the east, however, is just exactly what I would expect. Some of the maps even label this one "Rail Road". The alignment effectively follows the contour lines.
So, for me the weak arguments against it being a railroad bridge are: it was built to early, the deck is too wide, construction is lightweight, and the other two railroad crossings were girders
Stronger arguments are: the map in "radrpt2002_dfw.pdf" shows the railroad ending south of the bridge, the various texts I found mention a railroad only between the reactor and the hot cell area which would not involve crossing at this bridge, and the alignment of the road crossing at the bridge could not be used for a conventional railroad.
I'm convinced. But if someone is equally convinced that it _was_ used by the railroad, and adds the category back in, I'm not going to fight it. *smiles*
That was a very interesting bridge hunt.
I guess I made things confusing when I moved the map pin to the blue trail crossing instead of entering the coordinates I had arrived at.
Since the default map is a Google map, I couldn't see the bridge but could see the blue trail crossing.
Andrew, a minor point about the bridge design description. This is a 5 panel Pratt because the end post to hip vertical counts as a panel.
And get used to the frustration of not being the fastest. Luke is _so_ fast he can update the page in less time than it takes me to reload it!
I'm not convinced it this bridge ever had the railroad on it. Based on the map in this PDF Andrew linked
http://www.gaepd.org/Files_PDF/gaenviron/radiation/radrpt2002_dfw.pdf the reactor is just south of this bridge and the railroad didn't cross the Etowah River here.
The map in this page http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=405686 shows this bridge as "existing". It doesn't distinguish between rail and automobile roads - but those two maps seem to match. None of the data that I'm seeing has the railroad north of the river, west of the horseshoe bend.
the coordinates we have are correct. 34.3683, -84.1650 is what is given by the Etowah River Water Trail Point Of Interest marker at mile 44.24, just west of that horseshoe bend:
http://etowah.secondsitellc.com/interactiveMap.php
and that POI links to this picture that I posted earlier today:
http://etowah.secondsitellc.com/DawsonForest.php?i=1
So ... good hunting everyone, well done! Found that bridge, the abutments for 2 others, and the Shoal Creek Rd bridge that was narrow gauge RR too [this is the Red trail/Blue trail/P7 road crossing] see 34.35605,-84.140089 in Bing, and see: DawsonForest005.jpg from
http://www.advrider.com/forums/printthread.php?t=405686&pp=100 (11-28-2008 4:05pm post)
4 bridges for the price of 1. Nice.
Drew
this link
http://northgeorgiamountainramblings.wordpress.com/
says it was a narrow gauge RR, and this canoeing brochure
http://dawsoncounty.org/uploads/files/parksandrecreation/Canoe_Put-in_Brochure.pdf
shows where "Bridge #1" and "Bridge #2" were, both of which were blown up when the GNAL nuke squad left in 1971. These are some of the coordinates we found earlier.
Ok, this is getting frustrating because you guys are faster at all this than I am! :-)
That's Luke posting, BTW.
That could also be the case. For example: http://bridgehunter.com/ia/jackson/bh53101/ (the image is from 1935 when the MILW was scrapping the line.) appears to be a very lightweight bridge (what you can see of it) when compared to a heavier gauge line like this bridge: http://bridgehunter.com/ia/scott/2930/ .
We could be talking narrow gauge RR, or a very small diesel switch engine. Neither would need full scale RR strength.
I agree, it doesn't look like a normal railroad bridge - but this was not a general freight railroad. It was a dedicated, remote controlled train that carried irradiated stuff from the reactor site to the laboratory. Not proof, but it wouldn't have to be as heavy as a general freight bridge would be.
Add to that, the brige in the photo is almost certainly build before 1950. And the deck is too wide. That's about when Lockheed made this area a nuclear research site. And obviously the area wasn't used for nuclear activities when the bridge was built (probably before 1920).
So - was it a automobile bridge already there? Was it moved there? Was the train light enough it ran across a pre-1920 automobile bridge?
Perhaps, It doesn't seem to me like a railroad bridge either.
This looks extremely lightweight for a railroad bridge. I can't say for sure that it was not used by a RR but it looks very much like a ca. 1900 vehicular bridge to me. I am not familiar with this area at all, but could the RR have used another bridge in the immediate area?
Yes, I'd added the blown-up girder bridge across the river, I just linked it as a related bridge and am waiting on permission from a Flickr user to us an image of the abutments.
You can see a sideview of the bridge at the :53 mark in the video at http://www.dawson.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=92 which confirms we're dealing with a 3 panel Pratt.
Apparently this is an old RR bridge, on the stubb end of North Gate Rd, a rail line that once supplied the Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory
depending on how you define the end of N Gate, the bridge could be at
34.368342,-84.165598
34.368316,-84.165586
34.376667,-84.187335
34.386371,-84.192656
34.360916,-84.179001
or several other spots where hiking trails or old logging roads give out just before the river.
and here is a hiking map for the area, which is the Atlantic Tract of the Dawson Forest WMA
http://www.georgiaoutdoors.com/hunting/WMAmaps/DawsonForestAtlantaTract.pdf
which shows Google's Clark Rd as Bagwell Rd, shows the tail end of North Gate as River Rd which neither Google nor Bing show ... etc. It almost seems like some darn secret government conspiracy. Oh wait, IT IS. Because this entire WMA property is where the super secret Lockheed Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory was back during the cold war!
http://www.gaepd.org/Files_PDF/gaenviron/radiation/radrpt2002_dfw.pdf
note the Hot Zone picture on page 2, which shows a RR crossing about here 34.356244,-84.146519
and then pull that up in Bing ... and Houston, we have abutments!
You're never going to see such a tiny truss skeleton with a satellite shot from either Google or Bing.
Rail Road is Clark Road is blue trail/yellow trail,
Sweetwater is North Gate Road south of Rt 53,
Shoal Creek Rd is P7 road inside the park
here is a map that shows the bridge
http://etowah.secondsitellc.com/DawsonForestMap.php
here is the bridge and a description of how to get to it
http://anybodyseenmyfocus.blogspot.com/2011/12/dawson-forest-wildlife-management-area_04.html
Here is a close up; nothing is left but the truss itself http://etowah.secondsitellc.com/images/Dawson_Forest/DSCN3097.jpg
Had to cut this in parts cuz of server only letting me post 3 links
On the subject of the railroad bridges associated with the nuclear facility, everything would have been marked on US government maps and probably on Lockheed documents, good luck sweet-talking them into letting you look at them. All the railroad tracks, ties, and bridges were removed (the bridges were blown up and, apparently, fragments can be found in the woods.).
Fun fact: The only building that remains standing is what was called the "Hot Cell," and it is still somewhat contaminated.
The railroad was controlled remotely and carried samples from the hot cell building to the reactor, where they were blasted by hard radiation as the reactor was raised out of its shielding. The railroad then brought the now highly radioactive samples back to the hot cell, where they were studied chemically and mechanically inside the cell with remote manipulators. The hot cell was too hot and far too radioactive for humans to enter, even when no samples were present, due to the heavy irradiation at the time.
They didn't demolish the hot cell building because it was thought that the dust raised by demolition would drift and cause further environmental contamination. It was left to sit until the isotopes present decayed to less harmful levels. It's fenced off so people won't go in and stir up dust.
Whoopsie! I wasn't looking directly at the trail crossing and didn't pan far enough to to the right. Good job Don.
Don, that sure looks like a truss brige to me!
From the map and your description, I gather the position is 34.36840,-84.16496. I'm changing the lat/long.
My map call the road north of the river North Gate Rd. The Blogspot photo Luke linked to, from the text, would have to be taken facing south. That too fits with what I see in the Bing image.
Good work, all!
This page has a map of the nuclear site. There are two bridges listed on a line that my US Census TIGR map shows as Sweetwater Church road.
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=405686
But only one is across the Etowah River at +34.356014, -84.140101 - though my map calls that Shoal Creek Rd.
The other - I think more probable - is at +34.381922, -84.152377. This is still on Sweetwater Church Rd. and the road looks much more overgrown on Googlearth.
There is another line that could be the railroad but isn't listed as such. If that line is the rail alignment, there would be two bridges on that one too. That line makes it's northern crossing at 34.364582, -84.148905 which is pretty close to the point Luke has for the railroad bridge.
Oh, yeah. Those screenshots were courtesy of Microsoft Bing Maps and their imagery providers.
Well, it wouldn't be the first time my brain added details that weren't there, but here's what I think I see.
On the map image, I connected with yellow dots Sweetwater Road and hwy 318, with a crossing at the location I cited in Bing Bird's Eye.
On the screenshot from Bing Bird's Eye, I have marked with red arrows where the old road approaches the bridge from north and south.
The blue arrow points to a portal member near it's upper hip joint. I can also see what looks like the bottom portion of a parallel portal member a short distance to the west of it, and possibly a vertical with a floor beam hanging down from the hip joint.
It looks like a top portal beam on the north a short distance below the red arrow. Possibly a vertical just northeast of the blue dot.
I wonder if Sweetwater Rd was renamed North Gate rd for the purposes of the wildlife area? I.e. Road from the north gate?
I can't find it, it's supposed near the end of North Gate Road according to this: http://anybodyseenmyfocus.blogspot.com/2011/12/dawson-forest-wildlife-management-area_04.html
There is nothing at that spot in Bird's Eye, Don. The coordinates I'd used were from the Flickr image, but that was too far from the river. I'm move the pin to each river crossing of the trail and open a Bird's Eye View of it and see if I can't find it.
Enter 34.3684,-84.165 into Bing Bird's Eye view, then look for the truss. I can't see it in Bing Aerial view.
It really isn't visible on Google. Look near Blue Trail, just south of where Yellow Trail meets Blue Trail, at the river.
Possibly older Google imagery would show it, depending on daylight and season conditions.
Luke, do you have specific lat/long data? Or did you just put in something that's in the area?
We used to hang out here a lot in the early 80's. Rumor had it that this bridge was haunted by a woman who had hung herself from the bridge after her husband was shot by the Forsyth County Sheriff. Supposedly that also happened at the bridge. It was very spooky at night but very cool. I'm glad to see it hasn't fallen down yet. It should be saved and made into a pedestrian path over the river..
The historic trusses are supposed to be in storage at an airport: http://www.griffindailynews.com/view/full_story/17987259/article-Bridge-to-be-moved-Monday-morning?instance=home_news_lead_story
This bridge is currently being removed for a newer one. I am a Griffin resident and hate to see it go.
On the contrary Cathy... It's a real beauty that needs some TLC so it will last another hundred years!
This bridge is not ugly!
I have a couple of photos that I took in January 1980 of this bridge before the 1984 restoration. It's nice to see it's been updated and repaired, and the area cleared into a nice park.
Bridge is currently closed, though it does appear they are working to repair it.
This bridge is being studied for replacement. Unfortunately the replacement bridge appears to be a concrete cookie cutter. If you want to see it in person, make plans to do so over next couple of years. For latest details on the replacement plans, check the Georgia DOT website.
Hi My name is Dwayne.My grandfather use to tell me about crossing Settles Bridge when it once had wood on it.But that had to have been some time ago.As a teenager,some friends and i use to go to the bridge and walk across the I beams to the Cumming side.I've also jumped off that bridge from the middle of the lower beam and off the very top in the middle.Was frighting at the time but i done it anyways.I've spent alot of time there.Whether it was taking walks or just watching the the water flow past.Really enjoy that place.Hope someone can save that bridge from collapsing into the river.That's part of both county's history.
Already nearly 900 people from Albany and across the nation have signed an online petition to promote the re-purposing of this Bridge for pedestrians and cyclists. This option, which is both practical and feasible, follows similar successes in Columbus and Chattanooga. A pedestrianized Broad Avenue Memorial Bridge is critical to the revitalization of historic downtown Albany and its Riverfront. The petition can be found at change.org:
http://www.change.org/petitions/save-albanys-historic-broad-avenue-memorial-bridge-2
It is a shame that the wooden flood plain trestle that extended beyond this bridge (on into Lyerly) was burned. Rumor has it by a dimwitted local who was worried about people cossing 'his land' during the rails to trails project for this line. I wish I had gotten photos of that before it happened.
The bridge is still there as of 02/21/2012. It did not wash away. Carroll County has purchased the property on the west side of the river and will incorporate the remains of the bridge into a new 400+ acre park.
this bridge is seen in a scene up courageous, a recent movie released to theaters. I would post a picture but I'm pretty sure that is copyrighted material. But I double checked its 4 minutes and 48 seconds into the movie.
Decomissioning Ceremony on February 11, 2012 at 11 AM by the SOWEGA Veterans Coalition which consists of both American Legion Posts 30 & 512, Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2785, Marine Corps League, Air Force Sergeants Assn, Disabled American Veterans, Vietnam Vets Assn and Fleet Reserve. The last performance of it's type by the U.S. Marine Corps Band will be playing for the ceremony which will honor those in WWI for whom the bridge was dedicated to.
Once the new bridge is completed, it will be recomissioned with WWI dedication plaques restored. Since it will technically be a new bridge, a plaque will be added and the bridge re-dedicated to include those who served since WWI.
Does this warrant a change of status for this bridge to "dual use"?
http://chronicle.augusta.com/latest-news/2012-01-20/truck-stuck-railroad-bridge
What are those things that appear to be bridge pilings on the south-west bank relative to the RR bridge?
Help to promote the re-use of this Bridge -- possibly as a pedestrianized crossing! There is a new Facebook group with the aim to "Save the Broad Avenue Bridge" -- and nearly 700 fans have already voiced their support. Join the Facebook group in order to keep up with the latest news on restoring the Bridge and to learn how to help in this important effort.
This is the Flint River in Bainbridge just northeast of Lake Seminole.
Note that this is one of the only historic bridges in this entire region which has nearly zero historic bridges. I recall communicating with someone about this bridge through email a while ago. Let me give you the barf bag I used then!
Sure....let's replace a beautiful open-spandrel arch with a hideous structure that looks more like an arched railroad girder.
Nathan...I need one of your barf bags!
It's about time that penalties start being assessed toward bridges that are allowed to deteriorate "beyond repair".
According to the attached article, this bridge was closed to traffic on 2/12/09 after an underwater inspection revealed footing damage (need to change the bridge status). GDOT is moving forward with a replacement bridge and plans to demolish the current structure, but there is a local effort to keep the existing existing bridge for pedestrian use:
http://www.albanyherald.com/news/2011/nov/30/should-current-broad-avenue-bridge-be-saved-growin/
View attachment #1 (PDF document, version 1.5, 95392 bytes)
so more research indicates that George left the family business and started his own, that went on to become a competitor, so I was completely wrong. Will add that to the timeline. Please excuse.
I've been working on some research on King Bridges. George was a family member that was put in charge of sales and based out of Des Moines. I don't think he was the Bridge Builder, which would have been King Bridge Co. I'm still trying to find out the dates when the name of the Company changed but I did read most of this on the King website in a speech by Alan King Sloan.
I'll post what I have. There seem to be some dates that don't totally jive, but still a work in progress.
A new paint job has the bridge looking a lot better; some nice photos accompany this article:
http://onlineathens.com/local-news/2011-11-28/historic-cemetery-bridge-restored
(I guess if you are a newspaper reporter, getting photos is less of a problem).
Bridge now closed to traffic since the new bridge was built slightly downstream and Rex Road was widened and re-routed about two years ago. The pony truss bridge is now a pedestrian only structure and is slated to be the centerpiece of a redeveloped historic Rex, Ga.
The bridge is still functional. Although the train does not go to Mineral Bluff, it could. The line is intact between Murphy Junction and Mineral Bluff and periodically hosts railroad motorcar trips. The depot at Mineral Bluff has been refurbished and houses a model railroad club. The portion of the line that was removed was from Mineral Bluff to Murphy, NC. The line from Murphy to Andrews and further east is still intact and is part of the Great Smokey Mountains Railroad.
This bridge has been removed. A new bridge was opened to traffic in 2010.
All bridges crossing the Chattooga River were studied for demolition and removal in the early 1970's as part of the study and research performed for inclusion of the Chattooga River in the National Wild and Scenic River System. This included both Rogue's Ford bridges at U.S. 76, Low Bottom Bridge and the suspension bridge upstream of it, the Russell Ford Bridge or S.C.28 bridge, and the rest of the bridges upstream. The Rogue's Ford truss bridge was built in 1895 by the George H. Crafts Company of Atlanta, Ga. according to the contractor's tag sign removed in January of 1975 from above the trellis work on the S.C. end of the bridge. The cast iron sign weighs nearly 100 pounds and has 5 bullet holes thru it and is the last remaining remnant of the bridge. The tag sign on the GA.end of the bridge was destroyed by rifle fire prior to 1972. 1895 was the beginning of the era of the "infernal horseless carriage" at a time when cars were works of art created at the rate of just 1 or 2 a month. This bridge saw both horse drawn wagons and carriages and the earliest automobiles. The bridge should have been preserved, equipped with a steel grate pedestrian floor and handrails and ramped on each end for use by hikers and others. It would have made an excellent observation platform expecially during high water flows.
My cousin and I drove over that bridge in the mid '90s in his S-10. Probably not the smartest idea but it was still being used by the locals and we took it, no problem.
This bridge is being dismantled and replaced,after a portion of the deck fell in
This cemetery seems to be an unusual cemetery and it appears to be run by a private group and the bridge appears to be under their ownership, which would explain the flak that was given when photos were taken. It is however stupid since I fail to see the value of restricting photography here.
For what its worth, they are looking to restore the bridge:
http://athens.patch.com/articles/friends-of-oconee-hill-crossing-bridge-with-restoration
Sorry the previous writer did not get to see the bridge. I walked up to property owner's door and asked him if he minded if I shot. He did not. I THINK you could ask and he would not mind. He has a big dog, but no problem.
I never saw Fried Green Tomatoes or the other films shot in this community. Perhaps the bridge appears in one or more of the films.
teenagers just always went there and participated in illicet activities.
good evening, maybe you saw some ghosts but ther isa community when you cross the bridge, and also a hunting club.
Sufficiency rating of 3%? Based on experience with other historic bridge types such as metal truss and concrete arch, this bridge's condition requires removal and replacement with a two lane pre-stressed adjacent box beam structure, despite any historic value and/or preservation potential. But its a covered bridge so they will probably rehab for continued vehicular use.
I had always heard that this bridge carries a high volume traffic count.......but 26,000+ cars a day???.....really???
If you want to find out how high the bridge is off the water, all you need is a long tape measure (or a rope you know the length of) and a protracter taped to a yard stick, a piece of string and a weight.
Step One: With a person on shore and one one an innertube or raft or boat, take the rope or tape out to the pier of the bridge. Hold one end against the bridge and have the person on shore put in a stake in the ground at a convenient even distance, say 20' or 50' or 100', it really doesn't matter.
Step Two: Tape the protractor in the center of the yard stick, so that 0˚ is even with the top of the yard stick. Tie or tack a string with a weight at the far end to the middle of the protractor.
Step Three: Lay down at the stake on shore, hold one end of the yard stick up to your eye and sight along it to the top of the bridge pier. Let the string hang down while you do it. When you're aiming at the top of the bridge pier, clamp the string against the protractor with your thump. Write down the angle you get.
When you get back home, take a piece of paper and draw a line for the ground level/water level. Take a ruler and using a measurement such as 1/4" = 1', measure out the scale baseline between the bridge pier and your stake, whatever the distance you measured in the field. Then, using a protractor, from the end of the line where the stake would be, draw a line at the angle you measured with the protractor and string. Draw a line running at right angles from your baseline at the position of the bridge pier. Where the angle line and this line intersects is the height of your bridge pier. Measure that line from the baseline to the angled line, using the same scale you used for the baseline (say 1/4" = 1"). This will give you a fairly accurate estimate of the height of the bridge without having to use phsyics or complicated math. That's how foresters estimate the height of trees, by the way.
Reportedly, the new Harbin Bridge is open, quite a few days ahead of schedule and under budget (!!). Hopefully can get out there soon to take a few pictures and see if I can post them here.
This bridge was rebuilt in 1968-69 by Seaboard Coast Line Railroad (after the Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line merged in 1967).
never seen a deck truss like that. Indeed odd.
Found a old black and white photo of the bridge, not great quality, but its a picture at least. Link Below.
http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/cgi-bin/vanga.cgi?query=id:daw001
Sounds like an "eye for an eye", that's what he gets.
This bridge was to remain standing...but a dump truck helping with the new bridge hit it with the bed up and it collapsed. Sadly the driver didn't survive.
We gathered the picture from th local Historic Society pages because we couldn't find one anywhere else. Eddie was giving credit to the Historic Society since we borrowed the picture from their website. We are still looking high and low for more pictures of this bridge. Looking back in memories I have ridden over that bridge in the photo what seems like a hundred times as it was a favorite place for our family to go camping. If more pictures are found we will post them as we can... One half of the Eddie Douthitt Bridges R Us .....
Drawing from GDOT showing historic and replacement bridge. Measurements for historic bridge.
If it was indeed owned by the National Parks Service (i.e. Federal Government), then the locals had no real control over it's disposition. This was likely just a photograph that had been donated to them.
Courtesy of the Whitfield Murray Historical Society <<<<< IF THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY CAME IN AND TOOK PHOTOGRAPHS, WOULDN'T THAT MEAN THEY WERE THINKING ABOUT MAKING IT A HISTORICAL SITE? IF THE BRIDGE IS OR WAS MARKED A HISTORICAL SITE THEN WHY WERE THEY ALLOWED TO DESTROY THE BRIDGE?
THE BRIDGE WAS BUILT IN 1906 AND ALSO GOES BY THE NAME OF NAILS CREEK COVERED BRIDGE.
I would have thought that removing the center span would be the most effective option...usually, the center of the river is the deepest (and safest for river traffic), and two pedestrian and fishing piers could have been converted from the two end spans.
You know, come to think of it, if GaDOT had really wanted to remove a section of bridge to keep the people off, couldn't they have removed the westernmost span instead and converted the eastern span into a pier and tourist attraction? That looks really dorky the way it looks right now.....
JS
The bridge was listed as lost on this website, but from google earth and street view, the bridge still exists. The easternmost span has been removed, but the rest of the bridge is still there. I have updated the status to reflect this.
John and William Rogers were both half-Cherokee. They were forced to Oklahoma with so many others that were displaced by the federal government, but returned a few years after their emigration from Gwinnett county to sue for the rightful ownership of their property. (They were not only half-Cherokee, but also half-white, thus they had some standing and claim to US citizenship that not all the ousted Cherokee had.)
I am interested in more of the history of this bridge. Particularly, when was the pipeline added? It appears that the bridge had already been abandoned when it was utilized for a pipeline crossing. And what type of pipeline is this? It appears to be a natural gas transmission line, but I am unaware of any compressor stations or regulator stations in the area. Of course, I haven't been walking any right-of-way in the area so it's entirely possible that I just haven't been in the right place to see them.
In the words of Johnny-Five from the movie "Short Circuit":
"Must have more information. Need more input!"
. . .and. . .
"No disassemble!"
I am very interested in the history of the area from Adena, Woodland Indian eras to the present. Anything else anyone may add would be very helpful.
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/ga/forum/