ABT UNK: September 2022

Earlier this month, I attended a presentation by some "old-timers" in Granbury (people who lived here prior to 1969, when the Brazos River was dammed to form Lake Granbury). They shared their memories of growing up in Granbury, and some spoke about the first bridge that crossed the lake.

Thomas Ewell's 1895 Hood County History has this to say about the bridge (pages 144-145):

Not least among the great enterprises of our county is the magniﬁcent tubular arch bridge, which spans the Brazos at Granbury, ﬁrst constructed by private capital put forth in the form of a joint stock company in the year 1878, at a cost of, approximately, $25,000. The principal men engaged in this undertaking were P. H. Thrash, the Nutt brothers, E. A. Hannaford and J. D. Baker. This bridge was originally built in three span arches, resting on four stone piers, and with its wooden approaches, had a total length of over six hundred feet. In 1893 it was purchased by the county at $12,500, and bonds issued and negotiated for the amount. In 1894, the river by reason of floods, so encroached upon the west side approaches, as to wash away a considerable portion, very greatly interrupting travel until the injury was repaired by the substitution of a fourth iron span upon iron pillars. Other injuries have occurred during the year 1895, but no serious interruptions of travel, and again repairs are rendered necessary, and another iron span added. This bridge, so centrally located in our county, continued for 18 years to be the only wagon bridge across the Brazos above Waco, and has been the means of bringing thousands of immigrant wagons and travelers through our county, many of whom, pleased with its prospects, have remained to be permanent citizens.

A 1956 reprint of the book added the following information ("Hood County Today," page ii):

"The cost of the bridge was cared for by toll. ... Free traffic was opened in 1893. .... In 1932 a new bridge was built. The old bridge was torn down in 1937..."

I found an article about the bridge in the August 24, 1877, Galveston Daily News. The article was reprinted from The Vidette, the newspaper in Granbury at that time. This article said the bridge was four hundred feet long (which was probably the length of the iron arches):

cropped from The Galveston Daily News. (Galveston, Tex.), Vol. 36, No. 132, Ed. 1 Friday, August 24, 1877, newspaper, August 24, 1877; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth462488/m1/4/zoom/?q=%22tubular%20arch%20bridge%22&resolution=1&lat=806.3896458788859&lon=2854.7513022701564: accessed September 28, 2022), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Abilene Library Consortium.

An earlier reference to the contract by the Granbury Bridge Company with S. E. [sic, should be Z.] King and Company of Cleveland, Ohio, appeared in the Galveston Daily News of August 10, 1877, in a column called "Texas News By Telegraph."

cropped from The Galveston Daily News. (Galveston, Tex.), Vol. 36, No. 120, Ed. 1 Friday, August 10, 1877, newspaper, August 10, 1877; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth461238/m1/1/?q=%22tubular+arch+bridge%22: accessed September 28, 2022), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Abilene Library Consortium.

Why did this transaction occur in Courtney, a town about 200 miles southeast of Granbury? Courtney was on the Brazos River and on the railroad in the far southwestern corner of Grimes County (near today's Luther Unit of the Texas state prison). Apparently the Granbury Bridge Company's contract was signed about the same time as that of Courtney Bridge Company, according to an article in The Daily Banner of August 11, 1877, from nearby Brenham, Texas.

The Granbury Bridge Company representative(s) might have traveled to Courtney down the Houston and Texas Central Railroad from Fort Worth or Waxahachie (the "From Waco" portion in the 1876-1883 map below had not been - and ultimately wasn't - constructed). Click on the map below to view a larger version; Granbury and Courtney are outlined in fuchsia. (The Courtney Bridge was undermined by high water and collapsed in 1890.)

cropped and edited from Houston & Texas Central Railway Company. Revised map of the State of Texas., map, [1876..1883]; Chicago, Illinois. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth190460/m1/1/: accessed September 28, 2022), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Texas at Arlington Library.

So just where was this Granbury bridge located? Its first appearance is on an 1889 U.S. Geological Survey map that was based on a survey done in 1887. By this time, the Fort Worth and Rio Grande Railway had been extended to Granbury.

cropped from Geological Survey (U.S.). Granbury Sheet, map, 1889 [surveyed in 1887]; Reston, Virginia. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth451417/m1/1/: accessed September 27, 2022), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.

This map was the same (still using the 1887 survey) in 1949. It clearly wasn't updated as a new bridge was built in 1932 and this one was torn down in 1937. The bridge was gone by the 1963 map.

The 1923 map below may be more accurate, as old-timers on the panel and another source place the bridge at the south end of Cleburne Street, on the northwest side of the Brazos River/Lake Granbury. It joined up with Old Cleburne Road on the southeast side of the river/lake. My house is two blocks from the north end of Cleburne Street. I imagine remnants of the old bridge were still visible before the lake filled up.

cropped from Geological Survey (U.S.). Granbury 2-a Quadrangle, map, 1923; Reston, Virginia. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth455848/m1/1/: accessed September 27, 2022), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.

What did this bridge look like? Unfortunately, no photographs of it survive.* However, in 1875, the King Bridge Company had completed another tubular arch bridge (aka "King patent tubular bowstring iron bridge") for the Army at Fort Laramie, Wyoming. It was also 400 feet long with three arches, so the Granbury bridge was probably similar to it. Here is a photo of it in 1906 (click on the image to make it larger):

Above: cropped from National Archives Identifier 294477; "View showing Old Fort Laramie Military Bridge across North Platte River at Fort Laramie," 1906; Photograph albums, 1903 - 1972, Volume 1; Records of the Bureau of Reclamation, Record Group 115; National Archives and Records Administration–Rocky Mountain Region (Denver).

Below: OLD ARMY BRIDGE - FORT LARAMIE 1875 (undated / c1950), P2006-47/6, Forts & Camps - Fort Laramie #3 of 5, Wyoming State Archives. This copy of the image from WY-B-0008, WaterArchives.org / CC BY-SA 2.0

The surface of the Granbury Bridge probably looked a lot like this undated photo of the Fort Laramie Bridge, taken sometime before the bridge's renovation, completed in April 1969, into a footbridge. This bridge still stands and is part of Fort Laramie National Historic Site.

Above: undated image (taken before April 1969) of the Fort Laramie Bridge, courtesy Fort Laramie National Historic Site. Found on page 40 of Images of America: Fort Laramie by Stanley Talbott, 2010, Arcadia Publishing.

*ETA March 32, 2024 - I was recently contacted by Melinda Jo Ray, local historian and author of the recently-published Images of America: Granbury and Hood County (Arcadia Publishing, 2024). She kindly provided the following photographs of the 1878 Granbury bridge, which are courtesy of the Hood County Historical and Genealogical Society. In her accompanying text, Ray noted that the bridge "was wide enough for two wagons or carriages to pass each other with ease," and that after its demolition, "its limestone pillars are still there, under the waters of Lake Granbury."

Below: Cleburne Road Bridge, Granbury, Texas, 1902 photo by R. G. (Dick) Kerr.