The pedestrian bridge across the Tombigbee River is once again open to the public, connecting the city to The Island.
“We’ve been waiting 4 1/2 years to get this bridge opened again,” Mayor Keith Gaskin said during a ribbon cutting ceremony on Sunday afternoon celebrating the bridge’s reopening. “It’s been almost 11 years to the date that the very first ceremony was here to open it back in 2013.”
While the bridge reopened for pedestrian use in 2013, City Engineer Kevin Stafford shared almost a century of the bridge’s history with attendees.
Construction on the bridge originally began in 1925, Stafford said, with it opening to traffic for the first time on May 14, 1927. Originally, Stafford said, the bridge cost $165,000 to build, and two cars would have been able to pass each other on the 10-foot wide bridge.
Over time, Stafford said, commercial use of the river died down, and then stopped when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cut the Tenn-Tom Waterway in 1985, creating The Island.
By 1989, traffic on the bridge was reduced to one lane, after a void was found under the center pier, Stafford said. By 1993, it was shut down completely, when a bridge that could handle modern vehicles was built to the north.
But in 2012, the Mississippi Department of Transportation, the city of Columbus, Lowndes County and the Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau came together with the idea of rehabilitating the bridge for pedestrians. At that time, they engaged Malouf Construction to get the job done, Stafford said.
By Oct. 18, 2013, the bridge was reopened for its new purpose.
“You built it for $165,000 and rehabbed it for $2.3 (million in 2013),” Stafford said. “The original plans actually only had 19 pages, and the rehab plans had 37 pages. Technology has gotten much, much better.”
The bridge was open to pedestrians until Feb. 6, 2020, City Attorney Jeff Turnage said, when something struck the bridge and damaged it.
Since no one knew what had happened to it, he and former city Public Information Officer Joe Dillon strapped on life preservers and helmets, boating down the river to find what had happened to it.
“We knew that something big and green had hit the bridge because there was green paint on the bridge down below,” Turnage said. “… So we went down the channel and out into the Tenn-Tom river and found a green barge washed up on the shore with a great big dent right in the bow. So we had a good idea that that was what did it.”
A tow boat owned by Cooper Marine and Timberlands, based in Mobile, Alabama, was pushing eight barges south on the Tenn-Tom Waterway when the boat and its loaded barges grounded near the channel opening to the old Tombigbee River near Columbus. A boat owned by Max Marine came to aid the grounded vessel and, in the process, a loaded barge broke loose, drifted down the channel and struck the pedestrian bridge’s eastern support pier.
The city engaged a maritime lawyer to sue both companies in March 2021 and accepted a $4.2 million settlement in February 2023.
“I’ve never in my 32 years as a lawyer heard of a case settling for all the dollars that you need to make a party whole,” Turnage said.
“When we were involved in this case, we said the taxpayers are not going to pay one penny to repair this bridge, and that’s why we were so determined,” Gaskin added.
Malouf Construction returned nearly 10 years after the bridge originally reopened for pedestrian purposes, Stafford said, to repair the damaged pier. With work starting 2023, the company lifted the bridge, removed the old pier, and replaced it with a new one.
Even with additional lighting added to the project, Stafford said the work came in about $15,000 under budget.
As Stafford spoke, he pointed to a line in the concrete where the audience was sitting.
“This line right here, we’re sitting right on top of the pier that was just replaced,” Stafford said. “That’s the confidence that we have in what was done.”
Stafford pointed out that the bridge will reconnect the community to the Sen. Terry Brown Amphitheater, which has sat idle since it was built in 2017, awaiting components necessary to host ticketed events.
Using the original ribbon used to open the bridge for pedestrians in 2013, Gaskin and members of the city council once again ceremonially reopened the bridge. Both ends of the bridge should be open for the foreseeable future, Gaskin said.
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