A Chunk Of History
| When you turn onto Lakeview Road off Martel, you'll
cross the railroad tracks then shortly there after you'll pass over a
little bridge spanning Muddy Creek where our farm is. For years, I had
noticed a section of the rail from the bridge in the creek. Obviously,
something at some time, hit the concrete rail really hard and knocked it
into the creek. Just have to wonder what hit it hard enough to break of
such a large piece of the bridge.
I always thought it would be fun to retrieve the bridge section from the creek just for a talking piece if nothing else. As we all know, it has been really dry for the last few months. Muddy Creek, as it runs through the farm, is the lowest I've ever seen it. I figured if I was ever going to get the rail section out of the creek, this would be the time. Using various methods and a lot of work, I was able to get the piece out of the creek. I was finally able to pick it up with the tractor and carry it to higher ground. After lifting it high enough to clear the fence, I was looking it over. To my total surprise, I could tell, under layers of mud, there seemed to be some kind of identifying placard on the rail. I carefully carried it to a place where I could clean off the years of mud. Unbelievably, there was in fact a plaque embedded in the concrete. It reads: Designed And Built What an incredible find. The chunk of the bridge is about six feet long and thirty-eight inches high and I'm guessing by the way the tractor worked, probably weighs a little more than a thousand pounds. Did a little research on the Luten Bridge Co. Turns out they built thousands of bridges in Tennessee from the late 1800's to the depression. They specialized in arch, concrete bridges like the one over Muddy Creek. They built small and large bridges. During the research, I also found the Lakeview bridge on the state website. The report says the bridge was last inspected on 8/11/2016 and had a score of 77.7. I guess that's good for a 106 year old bridge. When built in 1916, during World War 1, the bridge was just one lane, measuring just twelve feet wide on the deck. You'd have to figure back in those days, most of the traffic over the bridge would still have been horse drawn with maybe an occasional Model T. I suspect before the construction of the new concrete bridge, there might have been a wooden bridge or maybe traffic just drove through the creek, no idea. At some later date, the bridge was doubled in width to accommodate the two lane road. In the near future, I will build a pedestal of some kind to display the chunk of history.
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11/14/22
