Main Street Bridges
Salado, Bell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A number of bridges have been built over Salado Creek on Main Street since 1870. After the town of Salado was laid out in 1859, citizens crossed the creek using various combinations of rocks and logs. When local citizens and students at Salado College began to demand that a proper bridge be constructed across the creek, town officials voted to issue bonds to fund the project. The first bridge, built in 1868-69, was constructed by local volunteers. The cable wire suspension footbridge, with cedar crossbars and a wooden plank floor, was destroyed in a 1900 flood. The second bridge, a larger structure which would accommodate wagon as well as foot travel, was an iron bridge built by the King Bridge Company in 1892. Located a few yards west of the suspension footbridge, it rested on piers of rock and mortar, and was destroyed in a flood in 1913. Replaced a year later, the duplicate bridge was washed away in a 1921 flood. A concrete bridge was built across the creek in 1922. Anchored with reinforced steel set into the rock creek bed, it proved to be a more permanent solution than previous efforts to bridge the stream and continues to be a focal point in the town. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Since Salado was laid out in 1859, townspeople have struggled to keep a crossing over flood-prone Salado Creek on Main Street. A volunteer-built suspension footbridge of 1868-69 gave way to an iron wagon bridge in 1892, and both, along with their successors, were repeatedly swept off by floods in 1900, 1913, and 1921. Only the reinforced concrete bridge of 1922, anchored into the rock creek bed, finally proved lasting and remains a focal point of the town.
Why it matters
The bridges' repeated destruction and rebuilding tell a vivid story of how nineteenth-century communities fought nature to knit their towns together with reliable transportation.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Salado
Salado, TX
Salado was formally laid out in 1859 when Col. E. S. C. Robertson donated land for a townsite and a college, though travelers had long passed through its spring-fed land. By the 1860s it thrived on farming, ranching, milling, mineral baths, and education, with Salado College opening in 1860 and the first Texas chapter of the Grange organizing here in 1873. The town nearly emptied in the early twentieth century before retirees and the arts revived it, and it re-incorporated in 2000.
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Fed by gushing limestone springs at the Balcones Fault, Salado Creek drew people to its fish-rich, tree-shaded banks for centuries—Native peoples camped along it, and Spanish explorers gave it its name. Archibald Willingham became the first Anglo-American settler in 1851, and by 1860 the town and college of Salado rose on the creek. With as many as eight mills, it became the county's industrial center, and both the Chisholm Cattle Trail and the Dallas-San Antonio stage line crossed its waters.
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