Tallahatchie River Bridge
Facts
- Overview
- Through truss bridge over Tallahatchie River on MS 6 / US 278 west of Batesville
- Location
- Panola County, Mississippi
- Status
- Open to two-lane traffic
- Future prospects
- Being replaced, likely doomed if not gone already.
- History
- Built 1940
- Design
- Riveted, skewed, 7-panel Pratt through truss
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 160.0 ft.
Total length: 599.9 ft.
Deck width: 23.9 ft.
Vertical clearance above deck: 15.0 ft.
- Also called
- Little Tallahatchie River Bridge
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +34.29624, -90.05438 (decimal degrees)
34°17'46" N, 90°03'16" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 15/771117/3798932 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Asa
- Average daily traffic (as of 2015)
- 4,900
- Inventory number
- BH 22916 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
- Inspection report (as of January 2017)
- Overall condition: Poor
Superstructure condition rating: Poor (4 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Serious (3 out of 9)
Deck condition rating: Fair (5 out of 9)
Sufficiency rating: 6 (out of 100)
View more at BridgeReports.com
Update Log
- October 18, 2017: Updated by Robert Elder: Added Little Tallahatchie River Bridge to Alternate Name Field.
- October 17, 2017: New Street View added by David Backlin
- October 17, 2017: Updated by Robert Elder: Edited Future Prospects.
- July 3, 2006: Posted photos from Nathan Culpepper
Sources
- Nathan Culpepper - nathan [at] soundsgoodllc [dot] com
- Robert Elder - robertelder1 [at] gmail [dot] com
- David Backlin - us71 [at] cox [dot] net
Comments
This is a Pandora's Box for sure.
In 1972 the U.S. Board on Geographic Names decided that this is the Little Tallahatchie River. Their documentation can be found on the USGS website here:
https://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/
Perform a search for "Tallahatchie" in Mississippi, drill down to the entry for Little Tallahatchie River, and then look for the "BGN Subject Folders" section. (It's not possible to link to the specific page due to the screwy design of their website.)
On the other hand, it's hard to argue against local usage. The fact that the road signs say "Tallahatchie River" at this bridge is very compelling. Likewise, the National Bridge Inventory, based on records provided by MDOT, seems to prefer Tallahatchie River for the entire river below Sardis Lake.
The BGN Principles, Policies, and Procedures manual states: "The underlying principle of the BGN for establishing official geographic names and their applications is recognition of present-day local usage or preferences."
https://geonames.usgs.gov/docs/DNC_PPP_DEC_2016_V.1.0.pdf
However, the BGN has had a long history of not always following that principle. Instead of standardizing names, they've sowed confusion by adopting positions that are clearly the opposite of local usage.
Consider, for example, the Pittsburg(h) fiasco:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Pittsburgh
I'm particularly peeved about one of their decisions several years ago in Southeast Missouri to demote Whitewater River to "Upper Whitewater Creek" despite zero evidence that the stream has ever been called a "creek" throughout 200+ years of history.
Luckily for us we're under no obligation to follow every BGN decision. And how!
To complicate matters, this particular bridge sits at the transition point between the original river channel and the modern Panola Quitman Floodway, a man-made diversion channel labeled as such by the DeLorme atlas.
And then there's Google Maps, which consistently labels the entire river system as "Little Tallahatchie River" -- even those portions that most everyone, including the BGN, consider to be the main Tallahatchie River.
So, in a nutshell, it's complicated.
Dummyline Road running through Asa follows the alignment of the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad according to the 1932 Sledge, MS quadrangle.
Dummy line was a term for some steam streetcars and interurbans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_dummy
And the old song:
I noticed that too. I have not found anything definitive, but these are a couple of interesting links:
I'd like to know the story behind the naming of the nearby Dummyline Road!
According to Encyclopaedia Britanica, the river is also known as the Little Tallahatchie. Thus, I can see where there might be some confusion here.
As Luke pointed out, the variety of online maps do not agree on the name. That being said, we do want to have all information on here to be factual. If a few maps have the wrong river we still want to have the right river, or at least the most commonly accepted name. Bridgehunter has a special field for alternate name, and I think that we should use that special field for its intended purpose.
Based on my field visit, Tallahatchie seems to be the most common name. I crossed the river at two different locations, and at both crossings the name Tallahatchie was used. I have added a Google Streetview showing the sign with the river name as Tallahatchie. In addition, I have read several news reports about this bridge, and another one over the same river. All of these news reports use the name Tallahatchie instead of Little Tallahatchie.
For now, I have changed this listing back to its original name. Either way, I think that the Webmaster should make the call here - perhaps in consultation with our Mississippi Contributors. Those of us who are not from the area should defer to the locals and to the Webmaster on this one.
FWIW s topo map from 1965 also call this the Little Tallahatchie River, though those also spell streams wrong from time to time.
See: Worle Creek in Ames, Iowa.
Later topo maps and Google both misspell it as Worrell, when city documents/locals/older topos all use Worle.
I should mention that Google Maps seems to have erroneously labeled this river as the Little Tallahatchie. It is really the Tallahatchie. The Little Tallahatchie is to the West.
Reading through news articles, I am seeing conflicting reports of repair vs replace. We might have to punt this one to the Mississippi contributors on here.
I drove over this bridge in November of 2014. There was no sign of construction here at all.
But...according to the June 2016 Google Streetview, trees are being cleared at both ends of the bridge. This one is being replaced. I don't know if it will be retained or demolished.
Ed, see the page for the Tallahatchie Bridge near money, MS in Leflore County, and my comments and photos (including a recent photo of the current bridge): http://bridgehunter.com/ms/leflore/bh37512/
Michael Watson, Toronto
I looked it up and Billy Joe McAllister was supposed to have jumped off the Tallahatchie bridge in Money, MS. I don't see that one lisited on Bridgehunter. Oh well.
It's a shame they didn't make an effort to save this historic, iconic span.
Sorry,David is correct....It is(OR WAS)located in Leflore County...My mistake.Travis Nokes
It's not in Tallhatchie county, it's in Leflore County. Bobby Gentry wrote the song, and there are pictures of her standing on it in the Leflore county listings.
Go to Tallahatchie Bridge in Tallahatchie County ,Ms for the "Ode to Billie Joe" bridge story... Travis Nokes
Ode To Billy Joe was a song. A fictional song.
Okay, Friend, this will probably annoy you, but is this the bridge that Billie Joe jumped off?
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/ms/panola/tallahatchie/
Well, I am glad that the webmaster has weighed in. I will accept his decision whatever it turns out to be.
James, it is funny that you should mention the Whitewater river in Missouri. We had a very similar thing happened with the Whitewater River in Kansas. It has been known as both the Whitewater Creek and Whitewater River but the official name is now Whitewater River. To make matters more complicated there are various branches known as Whitewater Creek which join the main branches of the Whitewater River.