Cliff Darby

It appears the old US 71 continued on this alignment and crossed the next creek at a now-lost bridge.

Bridge doesn’t appear to be open to traffic. There are street signs indicating “bridge out” and satellite view shows the bridge left in the open position.

The newly posted photo looks like the Fulton Street bridge not the Moncla Bridge.

Awful lot of money spent on repeatedly updating that stretch of highway, that’s for sure.

Excelllent. Thanks for the photo! We’ll have to dig into the inventory to see when the current bridge was built, as that will give us an idea of when this one was replaced. Probably in the 60s when Highway 1 was improved from here and to the south.

Rode through in mid-June of 2018 and work is underway to either replace or bypass this bridge, as well as other bridges on MS 18.

I had to open my big mouth.... looks like all the trusses on MS 18 are in the process of being replaced or at the least bypassed.

Kinda funny how the Google Earth streetview car crossed in the night time and the view is basically worthless.

Roger that, David. I ride by this bridge somewhat frequently on my motorcycle, but I always pay more attention to the old railroad trestle right up the bayou ;) Wish I had pictures of it!

I think the build date for this bridge is inaccurate, based on the design of the bridge, and the traffic estimate coming from before the "build date" of 1991. A bridge appears at this location on the 1949 topographical map, so I would assume this bridge is at least that old.

Thanks for the excellent new info and pic, James! Would you mind sharing how we can find images like what you posted, as well as the contract and construction info? I would love to do my own independent research on other bridges.

Specific to this bridge, we could narrow down the exact date of closing / abandonment to when the levee was constructed here, as the levee was plopped directly over old SR 20 / Highway 1. I imagine both the old route and current route were open concurrently at least until the levee was constructed, severing the route.

From the satelite view this appears to not headwind bridge. Was the swing bridge possibly replaced?

Wish I was closer and could check out this bridge! IDK if it is open or not; Historic Aerials seems to show it open in 1994. Hard to tell after that. Seems like an odd place to build a bridge in the 1960s, though I suppose I could see a need for a cut-across between 17 and 577.

What a beautiful bridge!!

Wood decks like this scare the mess out of me! What a neat bridge, though. Glad to hear it has avoided the torch thus far.