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1910s-1920s Bridge On The Madison State Road


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A friend of mine and I made a day trip to Madison on Saturday, and we followed Chris Rowland's excellent Madison State Road directions on the way down.

 

Where the Madison State Road keeps wandering around either side of US 31 north of Columbus, there's a bridge that is similar to some I've seen that I know to be from the 1910s and 1920s. It's a cement arch bridge with a closed cement railing; it is narrow, with no shoulder between the edge of the lane and the railing. Here's a photo of it southbound. Notice the new railing at the north end.

 

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Looking over the edge where the new cement was grafted on, I could see the old railing lying on the riverbank below! So I got a wild hair and went down to investigate. The pieces of railing made for excellent footing.

 

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The sun was almost directly overhead, making it hard to get a photo that wasn't washed out, but here's a photo of this old girl from below.

 

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The arch structure clearly showed the remains of the framing, which I assume was wood, into which the concrete was poured.

 

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Click through any of the photos to see them larger, and to see more photos from the site, on Flickr. I also geotagged the photos so you can see exactly where the bridge is.

 

I don't have any evidence beyond my tingling Spidey sense to prove it, but I would be very surprised if this road is not an old alignment of US 31, or at least of State Road 1, its predecessor. But today, it's just 550 E, paralleling current US 31 by about 1500 feet where the bridge stands.

 

jim

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Looking over the edge where the new cement was grafted on, I could see the old railing lying on the riverbank below!

How surprising to see the old railing just lying there... an excellent souvenir for any road fan, if only it could be hauled out of there :P

 

I believe you are correct that the numbered highways also used this alignment before US-31 was upgraded and relocated.

 

I'm glad my directions where helpful--did you find any errors in them that I should fix? I haven't had time to take a second trip to verify them.

 

Chris

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Great pics - love old bridges. Occasionally I do pet (mostly dogs) transport between Memphis and Brinkley, AR, taking the dogs on the next leg of their trip from a (usually) kill shelter somewhere to a new home somewhere else. If I'm coming back to Memphis empty I use old U S 70. Always love coming down out of the hills east of Forrest City and Madison and seeing the old truss bridge over the St. Francis River.

 

Pictures bring up something - how does one go about posting pics on these posts. I've looked all over the site and can't seem to find anything telling me how to do it - Please to remember I'm a computer "fumbler", not an expert. :D

 

Safe travels everybody

 

Hudsonly,

Alex Burr

Memphis, TN

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Alex, I upload my photos to Flickr. You can use any photo hosting site, though.

 

In Flickr, I go to the page for the photo I want to upload here. There's an "All Sizes" button there. I click it, and then I click the "Medium" link, which displays the photo at the size you see here. There's an area at the bottom of that page with an address for the photo; I copy that, and then come to this forum, start a topic, click the Insert Image button, and paste that address in.

 

jim

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How surprising to see the old railing just lying there... an excellent souvenir for any road fan, if only it could be hauled out of there :P

When I first saw the picture, I thought "debris" but reading the text informed me that it was really a paved footpath and/or a souvenir. Looks can be deceiving. :D

 

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