Written by: Burnell Harnisch

“This story is about how I remember the old steel bridge at Jefferson. It was very narrow but in the older days it was almost wide enough. It had a plank deck and as the cars crossed the planks rattled around and made a lot of noise.

“Dempsey Wills, who lived in Dever area also farmed the Parrish Gap area. He used to move his tractors and other farm machinery back and forth between the two places. These were all gravel roads at that time except on 99E between Scravel Hill Road and Marion Road. The tractors, combines and other equipment were on steel wheels. On the tractors, the lugs had to be removed so as to be driven on the roads. What a lot of noise the steel wheels made on the gravel roads.

“My parents had a model T Ford touring car at that time and mom would take my sister and I over to visit Demp because they were brother and sister. It seemed like a long ways away to us kids because we were just little at the time.

“The steel bridge was dismantled and removed to the Sanderson bridge site and re-erected there to serve until a new bridge was built. I don’t remember what year that was. The present bridge was built in ’38 and opened in 1939. Some of the local dare-devils would climb up over the arches just to show off and put on a show.”