Historic Bridge over Judd Bayou, Tensas National Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana

Tensas National Wildlife Refuge is a magical place of forest, bayous, lakes, and wetlands. The last verifiable sighting of the Ivory-billed woodpecker was 1944 in these forests. Some diligent birders are still looking for the ivory-billed here, although I think they will have more success in the remote and rugged mountain forests in Cuba. The Louisiana Digital Library has photographs of the woodpecker and the forests when they were still largely pristine.

During the 2020 Audubon Christmas bird count, one birder volunteered to explore the woods along Judd Bayou. I had never been to that area and decided to check the access in mid-December. To reach the bayou, you take Charles Brown Road off US 80 just east of Waverly and follow it south over I-20. It passes farms and then enters the forest at the boundary of Tensas NWR. Abruptly, you are in a forest from another time. Where is the dinosaur? The road runs parallel to the Tensas River along its west bank. It ends at an old-fashioned riveted steel girder bridge with a sign that cars are not allowed to cross. 

Judd Bayou bridge (Kodak Ektar 25 film, Hasselblad 501CM, 80mm ƒ/2.8 Planar-CB lens)

The late afternoon light was perfect, and I took a frame on the long-discontinued, ultra high resolution Kodak Ektar 25 film. Click the picture to expand to 2400 pixels wide to see details.

Bridge details from the Louisiana Department of Transport:

• Parish: Madison
• Bridge Configuration: Through truss Pratt truss
• Bridge name: (none)
• Facility carried and feature crossed: OLD HWY 80 over JUDD BAYOU
• Year built: 1908
• Owner: Bureau of Fish and Wildlife, Federal ownership

The LADOT information about Hwy 80 is almost surely incorrect because 80 ran E-W through north Louisiana, approximately following the main railroad line. I doubt it made a big swing south into this forested region, which was formerly known as the Singer Tract (owned by the Singer Sewing Machine company).  

A 4-wheeler track may lead south from the bridge, eventually connecting to Quebec Road, but I am not sure. I could not go further in my car, but it was a lovely setting, and I did not see any dinosaurs or ivory-billed woodpeckers. Imagine the magnificence of these forests if they had not been logged and destroyed in the 1940s.

Forest near Rainey Lake (Kodak Panatomic-X film, Rolleiflex 3.5E Xenotar lens)

Forest off Quebec Road (Kodak Panatomic-X film, Rolleiflex 3.5E Xenotar lens)

Here are two examples of the magnificent hardwood bottomland scenery from 2019. 

Farm on Charles Brown Road (GAF Versapan film, Voigtländer Vito BL camera)

Barn on Charles Brown Road

Tensas NWR is a bit out of the way but well worth a diversion to visit. 

Write your Federal representatives to support and expand the National Wildlife Refuge system, as well as National Monuments. Protect the wild lands that we still have; leave a legacy for your descendants. Undo the mismanagement, pillage, corruption, and destruction of our natural environment wrought by the previous administration in Washington.

Major Loss: Beautiful 1903 Steel Arch Bridge over Jackson Road, Vicksburg, Mississippi

Old-timers remember when Confederate Avenue in the Vicksburg National Military Park crossed Jackson Road on a steel arch bridge. It was a beautiful example of early-20th century engineering - light, airy, and strong. I posted low-resolution contact sheet scans before, but as part of my National Park project, I scanned these 2002 negatives individually at 2400 dpi. In the 1980s, pedestrians could still cross the old bridge, but traffic was routed on a modern concrete bridge.

Photographers from the Library of Congress photographed the bridge as part of the Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey. According to the Library of Congress:

Notes
-  Significance: The steel arch bridge on Confederate Avenue in Vicksburg National Military Park is significant for its design. It is the only extant steel arch bridge in the State of Mississippi. The structure was included among a number of the state's historic bridges nominated for the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
-  Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N479
-  Survey number: HAER MS-12
-  Building/structure dates: 1903 Initial Construction

Look at the last photograph; you can see how a footing has been displaced and has tipped over. But the bridge is still standing, held up by three footings. The structure was not weak. Workmen from Riverside Construction of Vicksburg pulled down the span using a bulldozer and dump trucks on June 20, 2002. They cut up the steel and took it away for recycling.

This is how we lose our architectural and engineering heritage: no one cares, and boneheaded authorities take the cheap and easy way out. For shame.

This is a footing on the north side of the road.

These frames are from Kodak Tri-X Professional film exposed with a Tachihara 4×5 inch wood camera with 75mm ƒ/8 Schneider Super-Angulon or 180mm ƒ/5.6 Caltar IIN lenses. I scanned the negatives with an Epson 3200 Photo scanner and touched up dust or chemical blobs with Photoshop CS5.

From the Archives: Tourist Pics of Vicksburg, Mississippi 1985-1992

While looking through a box of old negatives, I saw a film from my 1985 job-hunting trip. At the time, I lived in Houston, Texas - absolutely flat and topographically boring. But Vicksburg was an interesting place, with its history and its setting on the bluffs above the river. Not knowing if I would move here, I took snapshots around town. This will be a quick tour of some of the places a new resident might see. 

Driving from the east, many visitors first see the Big Muddy from the Mississippi Visitor Center. The scene is timeless - these photographs could be 1985 or 2019. I had driven here from the west and had therefore crossed on the I-20 bridge from Louisiana. In the late-1980s, the old bridge was still open to car traffic.

Walking on the Old Mississippi River Bridge, Kodak Stretch camera

By 1990, as I recall, the old bridge had been closed to traffic, but pedestrians could walk on it. This is a negative from a Kodak Stretch, which was a single-use (i.e., disposable) camera which purported to be a panorama format. That was deceptive: it had a 2-element, 25mm f/12 lens lens that projected onto a narrow strip of the 35mm frame, about 13×36 mm. However, I am surprised how well the Kodak Gold 200 film did with this crude lens. The APS film system also tried this fraud: the so-called panorama was just a thin strip in the middle of the frame. The entire frame was exposed but the processing lab automatically printed the thin strip.

Mississippi River north of the old bridge, Kodak Stretch camera

Mississippi River Bridges, Vicksburg, Fuji GW690II camera

The view from the overlook north of the Visitor Center is different now because the Ameristar Casino is in the foreground at the river's edge.

Mississippi River, Kodak VPS film, Rollei 35S camera, 40mm Sonnar lens

This is the bend in the Mississippi where the Yazoo Canal comes in from the north.

June 1991 view of former Vicksburg Hospital, Fujichrome 50, 4×5" Tachihara camera, 180mm ƒ/5.6 Caltar IIN lens

View north from Vicksburg Hospital, Ektar 25 film, Fuji GW690II camera, 90mm lens

In the 1980s, the old Vicksburg hospital was a concrete shell, standing where the police department is now located in a modern building. The view north to the City Hall and Post Office was rather boring. The architectural abomination on the right is now BancorpSouth Bank, but I am not sure what it was called in the 1980s.

Continuing north, this is a view of Clay Street at the intersection with Monroe. The Aeolian Apartments in the upper center were still rented as apartments in 1992.

This is Walnut Street looking north. I am not sure which of these houses are still extant.

Washington Street view south, Rollei 35S, 40mm Sonnar lens

Grove Street from Washington Street, Rollei 35S, 40mm Sonnar lens

Velchoff's Corner Restaurant & Miller's Still Lounge formerly occupied the building at the corner of Washington and Grove Streets (Summerlin and Summerlin 1995). I only ate there once and cannot remember when it closed. Look up Grove Street and you can see a car repair shop on the left. That building is gone, and again, I do not recall when it was demolished. The lot on the left was once occupied by the Masonic Temple, which was torn down in the mid- or late-1970s.

In front of the 61 Coffeehouse, view north, December 2018, Ilford Delta 100 film, Voigtlander Vito BL camera

61 Coffeeshop, 35 mm f/3.5 Super-Takumar lens, Pentax Spotmatic camera

Today, the corner building houses Attic Gallery and the 61 Coffeehouse. Daniel Boone runs 61 and provides the best coffee in town (except at my house....). And he employs charming coffee ladies. Look north along Washington Street and you see a building in the distance. Decades ago, this was a club and various other businesses.

Washington Street, Kodachrome 25 slide, Pentax Spotmatic camera, 150mm f/4 Super-Takumar lens

No. 913 Washington Street was once an automobile showroom. The second building, possibly a 7-Up bottling plant at one time, was unceremoniously demolished by City of Vicksburg in 2007.

Washington Street, Fujichrome 50 film, 4×5" B&J camera, 20" lens (presently the site of the M/V Mississippi on land)

The 1985 photographs are from Kodak VPS color negative film using a Rollei 35S camera. Its 40mm f/2.8 Sonnar lens was top quality for such a compact camera.

References

Summerlin, C. and Summerlin, V., 1995.  Traveling the Trace: A Complete Tour Guide to the Historic Natchez Trace from Nashville to Natchez. Rutledge Hill Press, Nashville, Tennessee.

UPDATE 2021. Here is a photograph on the Mississippi River Bridge during the 2021 Bricks & Spokes bike ride. This is one of the few times that the bridge is open to the public. It is fun to bike over the river.

Historic Steel Bridge, Vicksburg National Military Park

Long-term Vicksburg residents may remember that Confederate Avenue in the Vicksburg National Military Park crossed Old Jackson Road on a steel arch bridge.  The bridge and four similar structures were built in 1905 and used for many years, but by the 1970s, the other four had been replaced with modern concrete bridges.  By the mid-1980s, the steel bridge over Jackson Road was still open to pedestrians, but the road had been rerouted over a modern concrete span parallel to and west of the historic bridge.  Sometime in the early-1990s, the bridge was closed to pedestrians, but it remained unused in place, a relic of sound early 20th century engineering and construction.

This is the view of the historic bridge from the new concrete span. As you can see, it spanned quite a deep valley with a road and creek below.

This is a postcard from the archives of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.

Sometime in the late-1990s, one of the footings on the south side washed away, leaving the bridge standing on only three footings. According to the Vicksburg Post (June 20, 2002), National Park Service officials concluded that the bridge was structurally in imminent danger of failure and that repairs would be too expensive. Jackson Road was closed because of the fear that the bridge would fall.

I examined the footings with a friend who is a mechanical engineer, and his opinion was that if the bridge was standing strong on three legs, there was no imminent failure mode. The footing could have been repaired with piles or a concrete pad. Regardless, the decision was made to raze the beautiful old bridge. This photograph shows one of the footings on the north side of the valley.

Here is the still-intact arch entering the brush on the south side. You can see the dangling footing in the lower center of the frame. The demolition job was contracted to Riverside Construction of Vicksburg, and the workmen literally pulled down the span using a bulldozer and dump trucks on June 20, 2002. The steel was cut up and taken away for recycling.

This is how we lose our architectural and engineering heritage: no one cares, and authorities take the cheap and brainless way out. For shame that this happened in a National Park.

Photographs taken with Kodak Tri-X film on a 4x5-inch Tachihara camera, using 180 mm and 75 mm lenses. I had to carry tripod and camera down Jackson road on my bicycle because it was closed to traffic.

Bridges of Redwood, Yazoo River, Mississippi

For decades, drivers on Highway 61 (the Blues Highway) had to cross the Yazoo River at Redwood, Mississippi, on a handsome 1950-vintage steel cantilever bridge. Unfortunately, I do not have a photograph of the old bridge when intact. The old bridge was elegant in a mid-20th century industrial style, but no longer suited contemporary transportation needs. The two lanes were narrower than current standards, the bridge required expensive painting, and clearance was too low for some tall trucks.  Therefore, Mississippi Department of Transport (MDOT) built a modern concrete 4-lane bridge over the Yazoo a short distance south of the old structure. Rather than disassemble the old bridge, it was dropped in place using explosives on July 1, 2009. According to WJTV television, "The bridge was blown up at 7:50 a.m. and the blast was fueled by packets of explosives placed at strategic points by contractor Key Constructors. Boats on the Yazoo were halted as crews cleared the waterway." I missed the demolition because it was not announced to the public beforehand, but I drove to the site a few days later.

This photograph shows the east approach with some of the structure still standing.

This is the center span lying in the river. It must have taken several days to remove the debris, during which barge traffic would have been blocked. The Yazoo is a Federal navigation project, but commercial tonnage is low and the channel is seldom dredged.

A short distance to the south, out of sight of the highway bridge, is this abandoned railroad swing bridge. It has been unused since at least the 1980s. A few years ago, I read that these types of bridges were slowly disappearing from the US landscape, but one is still here.

The tracks and ties were removed a long time ago from the west side of the bridge. This is an example of the immense engineering infrastructure built by the railroads in the early 20th century. For many years, the best and brightest engineering students went to work for railroads because they offered the most challenging careers.

Finally, a slightly off-topic photograph. This is the auditorium of the Radwood elementary school on May 7, 2011, when the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers were at record flood levels. The school built temporary levees to keep out the water, and books, furniture, and other materials were moved to the auditorium, which was a bit higher than the other rooms. Fortunately, the flood waters did not reach the building and no equipment was damaged.

As a final example of bridges and railroad engineering, here is a monumental lift bridge on the Cuyahoga River, in Cleveland, Ohio. I have never seen this bridge in use, and it is rusting and deteriorating. But look at its massive construction.  I hope it will preserved as a mechanical or civil engineering monument. Also, look to the lower left and you can see a swing bridge similar to the one at Redwood.

Most photographs taken with an Olympus E-330 digital camera. The two sepia frames are from a Sony DSC-W7 compact camera.

Columbia River Bridges

The mighty Columbia Rivers drains portions of British Columbia, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. It has the greatest discharge of any US river entering the Pacific Ocean and is the fourth-largest river in the United States. Because it drops steeply from the mountains of Idaho and the high plateau of central Washington, it has tremendous hydroelectric potential. Since the early 20th century, the Columbia has been developed with 14 hydroelectric dams, and almost every mile of the once free-flowing river now consists of reservoir pools. The map, from the Wikimedia Commons, shows the extent of the river's basin

I explored some of the lower Columbia River Gorge during a recent trip, and two historic bridges caught my eye. The photograph above shows the spectacular gorge near Cascade Locks, about 40 miles east of Portland. The locks were completed in 1896, but they were subsequently submerged in 1938 when Bonneville Lock and Dam was completed some distance downriver.


The elegant steel truss cantilever Bridge of the Gods was opened in 1926 at a length of 1,127 feet (343 m). But once Bonneville dam was completed, the bridge was too low for navigation, so it was raised and the approaches were lengthened. It now has a length of 1,856 feet (565 m).


About an hour drive east, you reach the The Dalles, once the site of a long series of rapids. This is a much drier climate zone, almost desert. The Dalles Dam was completed in 1957, submerging the rapids, along with fishing platforms and other structures used by native Americans for hundreds of years. The Dalles Bridge is another handsome mid-century steel cantilever truss bridge, spanning the Columbia between The Dalles, OR, and Dallesport, WA. It was completed in 1953.

Photographs taken with a Panasonic G1 digital camera.