 Yeah, I'm gonna tell you some things you don't know about this area Of course the bridge has been there and like some of you said we used to ride our bicycles up and down it Those old wooden How it clattered when you rode across it? But let me tell you something about Bridges not only this bridge, but why they're important and Doug Steadman's gonna find me and tell you tell you more about this specific bridge But the whole idea and when I was with the highway department We spent funds on this bridge. They were gonna tear it down It was gonna be gone Because it got to the point where you really couldn't drive on it it Delipedated but and Doug will cover this more. This is one of the few examples of these tight trusses here and We spent federal funds to restore and preserve this thing You know, it was not meant for a tourist attraction or anything else It was meant to restore and preserve that bridge, but let's talk about bridges period When the railroad come through town In those days the city didn't have a whole lot of authority on the railroad. They were king of the hill and Their their freight trains have come to here and just stop they may stop for a half hour an hour Well, that pretty well cuts you apart from town. You're you're severed so we've got a bridge at Coliseum Drive and When we worked on Coliseum Drive and wanted to widen the street We had to link in the railroad bridge So I went to them and asked for y'all could help fund this to build a new bridge for the railroad Well, it's unfortunate that you built your road through one of our drainage structures We're not interested in helping you Then it didn't Well, then from Coliseum Drive you come the next bridge over the railroad is New Bromble's Avenue Then the next one is out of street which isn't there anymore. That was no wooden rickety wooden bridge Oh gray there And then you had the high street bridge But then after that the next one the St. Mary Street So when you had a freight train going this way and that way and they stopped You've cut this hole into town off if you had a fire out here, or you had an emergency Or you had you know police or ambulance you couldn't get here That's why these bridges are so important and that's why this bridge was put over here And again Doug's gonna tell you a little bit more about this, but it was salvaged somewhere else and brought here But you know, that's why these bridges were so important that we used to live out of Eastwood and Coming home from work my wife worked downtown a lot of times we come across the high street bridge Because all the other places were blocked So it's important that these bridges are there Now, yeah, I grew up right here and we used to go on here But one of the things maybe you didn't know right back of us is Dignity Park Do you know that in the 40s? They were considering building the Baptist hospital there and never could get all the funding But that's what they were looking at is building the hospital there Then of course now we've got IH 37 and some other roads across here But still this into town has always been nice. I think somewhere down around Houston Street in Hackbury is where the corrals were for the Mexicans when they was fighting the Alamo They were up here on this hill because you could see The Alamo down there. It's a good observation point So, you know, I've always liked this in the town this in the town was a railroad a lot of railroad people and you know like Of course young, you know where the Fredericks live at Frederick Then next to him was a son-in-law Then the Weedenfels then dr. Holt and then Ms. Dignity then when you crossed Burn it. It was Jesse Langley there. He's an engineer for the railroad two houses down with JC Thomas He was a conductor. So all this into town in here was railroad people. This is a railroad town and then of course y'all have heard of course about the The roundhouse when it blew up steam engine blew up there. That was back in 1912. I think it was and then No I was just telling me about and I remember When a train come down and didn't quite make the turn on Austin Street It wound up in the middle of Austin Street So, you know, there was a lot of interesting things and You know, I've had friends that worked on the railroad that some of them got hurt and all but The bridges was what tied this stuff together if you didn't have the bridges here you literally severed the towns Now I think the city requires that the train can't stop over so many minutes not in those days It's railroad didn't what they want so It's just interesting and this has always been a good end of town There's a lot of real nice homes out here, and I don't remember some this street haze or Burnett There's a concrete house down there Tain Street and the guy from Portland cement live there And like I said, there's a lot of beautiful homes that can be restored in this area but You know some of the things to keep us kids when we were little We'd started this corner of a habit in Nolan Our bicycles you get three pumps, okay We could go down knowing to pine down pine to Dawson This is coasting now coasting you only get three pumps This is coasting so we could go down there down to Dawson and down Dawson Sometime almost to the railroad track. Of course at the end you're sitting there. It's barely moving But let me tell you something else on the railroads For those of you, but I gotta tell you I also went to Fanon in Emerson, but I was before you near youngster The other thing I don't know if any of you remember that the bio depth on Nolan Street Do you remember that? It's like going into a tunnel, but what it was for the street cars They had on each side. It wasn't very wide You go down and come out and coming out you come out When we were little going to Brackenridge The buses and this thing wasn't very wide. It was only like 15 or 16 foot wide And the buses would go rolling through there Well, if they started rocking there's a lot of times the top of the bus was scraped on the wall That's how nervous it was it was scary and I remember one time after rain my brother and I went down there It filled up in water Well, there was a lady there She stopped she looked she says You think I can get through there? Well, there's a rain gauge there. Well, it's that eight foot We said yeah, you can drive through eight foot of water So anyhow, they finally fixed it They finally fixed the drains and now you have a nice wide Structure there, but in the old days I was just like driving through two times and I tell you something We did which don't try this That's teenagers when we were driving we close our eyes We were driving and somebody would tell us go right That wasn't very wise So don't you know We don't do that anymore But anyhow, this was interesting in the town and there's a lot of nice people here And I'm glad to see that a lot of these old homes are being restored Okay He's gonna tell you better You know my father told me about it because he lived just down the hill from Nolan Street And knocked him down in the front yard. So it was something else So, okay. Yeah, we're gonna have somebody talk about that and then Doug Steadman is gonna talk about the bridge specifically a Couple of things besides the sunset limited there was an argument for a long time and then talking about the Pro brewery they used Electric power To bring that little electric engine and that's what they did the switching and it brought it up here to what you're talking About history. That's what they the brewery sent there Well, they've got materials and I guess we sit here out Also, but that's what that little streetcar line was for it was a private line and then for a while I know daddy was working down there with them on the streetcars One thing I forgot to mention a while ago is that we lost a beautifully historic site here this past year When the church burnt down I started going to that church in January of 1935 And I got a phone call here at home here when it was on fire. I said the church is on fire We drove down there down But it had just fabulous stained glass windows in it. Yes. Holy smoke. Was that a fine? What was the church called before? Calvary Baptist Church. It was Calvary Baptist Yeah, and my father did a lot of the maintenance on it So whenever there was a storm he and I were in the church not at our house And then I can remember being up There's a ladder you went up and in the sanctuary It was tall, but we had to walk on the Raptors with the crossbeams in there and I know because I was just a little bit that if you If you missed If you missed a choice Your foot was going to go through and it's a long way down to that was about three stories high But then there was ladders up in those towers and when I know I remember times when it was Ice and snow Well, it plugged the gutters up there Well, then water started building up on the roof, but you couldn't have that so I can remember Getting up there and sliding down the gutter on ice to go down and remember you're up way up in the roof Unclogged the ice out of the gutter so that work Now that was a shame to lose that church, but I mean it happens, but I sure hate to see that happen And looking when it burns just look how they managed to see how they built it And it's amazing that remember they did this 1903 or so And I look around a lot of the stuff the old buildings and houses around here We don't build stuff like that anymore. We can't afford to build it like that You know, and I know it was dad who was talking about The bridges the trusses the different kind of trusses and so of course now we use That cost more than the bridge cost to build Just to paint it so it may be a lot of these environmental things are good, but sometimes they get out of hand You know, and then you run and I was up in Boston They got soft up there That when the winter and their bridges literally had holes I could stand and look up there. I said What do you mean? You've got holes in your bridge deck. Well, that's normal up there down here You'd never let that happen. We didn't know I just wanted to mention about the church