Whenever I write a column about the Tombigbee and mention bridges, I am almost always asked whether the 1928 bridge at Columbus was really a draw bridge. The recently restored 1928 Tombigbee bridge at Columbus is actually a type of draw bridge called a swing bridge. A swing bridge is a bridge that pivots on a (usually round) central pier with gears so that boats can pass through. Because the Tombigbee was classified as a navigable river in the 1800s and early 1900s (and is so classified today) the Army Corps of Engineers required bridges to either open or be high enough that they would not obstruct the passage of boats.

The first bridge at Columbus, a wooden covered bridge, was built by African-American bridge builder Horace King in 1842. The Columbus Democrat newspaper in the spring of 1846 referred to King as “a negro man…who built our bridge here across the Tombigbee and the new one across the Luxapellilah. He is one of the best mechanics in his line in all the south.” The bridge came off the bluff at the end of Fourth Avenue South and was said to provide a 65 foot clearance above the river. Of course at flood stage that was not true.

In the mid-1840s the people in Aberdeen complained the Columbus bridge obstructed river traffic at flood stage and unsuccessfully demanded Columbus remove the bridge. On February 17, 1851, the side-wheel steamboat Romeo attempted to pass under the Columbus bridge at flood stage and its pilothouse was knocked off by the bridge. Smokestacks on steamboats could often be lowered and there was no mention that the steamer had lost its stacks. Then four days later the steamer Jenny Lind sailed around the west end of the bridge, over what is now The Island, to save 1,100 bales of cotton in a warehouse threatened by flood waters at West Port. The bridge was removed by the mid-1850s.

The construction of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad in the late 1850s resulted in a spur line being built from Artesia to Columbus. A swing bridge railroad trestle was completed across the Tombigbee on the south side of the city in 1861. That bridge was rebuilt in 1906 and is the present day trestle. A timber thrown off the trestle during its reconstruction floated downstream where the Steamer Vienna struck it and sank.

In 1871 construction of an iron swing bridge began at Aberdeen. The specifications for that bridge were published in February 1871 and stated the bridge had to be constructed “in order that steamboat navigation may not be interrupted, the structure must be of that kind known as the ‘swing bridge.'” In October 1873 the state legislature authorized the Lowndes County board of supervisors “to build a bridge across Tombigbee river” at Columbus.

The new iron bridge at Columbus also needed to be a swing bridge so as not to obstruct river traffic. Construction of the bridge began in the summer of 1876. The proposals for the construction were to be delivered to the office of F.M. Leigh & Co. in Columbus by June 5, 1876. G.W. Abert was chairman of the Bridge Commission. The bridge was completed and officially accepted by Lowndes County on April 11, 1877.

By the early 1900s the Columbus bridge was showing its age and needed to be replaced by a larger wider bridge. The old bridges at Aberdeen and Columbus had been designed to be only wide enough for two wagons or buggies to pass each other and were not designed for motor vehicles. There were other problems with the old bridge at Columbus. In “I Remember When”, published by the Columbus and Lowndes County Historical Society in 1978, Mrs. Arrington Johnson recalled having a party at her house across the river from Columbus around 1915-1919. She had gone into town to get some “last minute essentials” and on heading home noticed traffic backed up at River Hill. The old bridge had opened to let a steamboat pass and the bridge had become stuck in an open position. She only beat her guests to her house because they too had been stuck in Columbus.

In 1926 construction began on the new highway bridge. Though it had been about six years since regular steamboat traffic had come to Columbus, the Tombigbee was still classified as a navigable waterway and could not be obstructed. The new bridge, which was completed in 1928, was therefore built as a swing bridge. Uncle Bunky, who grew up on what is now The Island, recalls that a huge T-shaped metal key was always on the side of the bridge. It would be inserted into a slot over the center span over the circular brick pier and used to turn the center span on gears between the span and the pier. The key would have been turned either by a number of men or by mule or horse power. Bunky does not recall ever seeing the bridge opened and does not know what happened to the key.

Accounts differ as to whether the 1928 bridge was only opened once or was actually opened two or three times. At any rate, at most it was only opened a few times and it has probably been 86 years since it turned. The bridge, newly restored as a walkway, really looks good now and the hole into which the huge “key” was put to turn the bridge span has been preserved in the middle span of the bridge.

Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].

READER FAVORITES

• 

  Our View: Selfish people don’t plant flowers

  By Dispatch Editorial Board • 2 days ago

• 

  Slimantics: Redistricting by another name is no less offensive

  By Slim Smith • 18 hours ago

• 

  Our View: We don’t want to hear, ‘there’s nothing to do’

  By Dispatch Editorial Board • 18 hours ago