Packsaddle Bridge

My Uncle and 2 passengers were killed in a single car accident on the south end of Pack Saddle Bridge near Wolf Creek on Wednesday Jan 1 1964 around 1:00 pm. The three were my Uncle Jerry Webb a cousin Eddie Mahl and a friend of theirs Bob Garrison returning from a pheasant hunting trip to Nebraska. The car was a red Rambler station Wagon left totally unrecognizable after the accident leaving pheasant strewn along the path as the car went off of the right side of the hiway right after crossing at the south end of the bridge. All three were headed back home to Elk City. It was a terrible day.

My Grandparents Jess & Lela Barton lived up the hill from the bridge on a farm next to the Packsaddle Bar. I used to go in there and buy pop in the late sixties. They raised cotton and Milk cows. We used to walk through the canyon down to the river then over to the bridge and back when I was a kid.

My aunt was involved in the destruction of the bridge! She was driving in her station wagon and an overloaded truck sieswiped her travelling the opposite direction. He only came back because the overloaded truck behind him actually hit the bridge! The bridge was too damaged to repair and thus the new bridge was built

My Grandfather and I put up that barbed wire fence that you can see in the foreground of one of the photos. He owned a lot of the river-bottom land, and we used to drive tractors, put up fences, and build levees so that he could lease the land out for cattle grazing. It was barren but beautiful Oklahoma land. (From mid '60s to early '70s)

Any color pics or pics of its ugly demolition out there???

I was told in my youth that my Mother's Uncle was the engineer that designed and built the Packsaddle Bridge. His name was C.V. Word and when I knew him he lived South of Arnett, Oklahoma on the U7 Ranch

Ray Meller