Caldwell County MO Archives History .....THE FIRST BRIDGE IN CALDWELL COUNTY  
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Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 4, 2008, 1:09 pm

THE FIRST BRIDGE IN CALDWELL COUNTY AND THE COVERED BRIDGE IN CALDWELL COUNTY
	Narrators:  Chas. Hogsett and Wm. Hemry

     Mr. Hemry recalls when this bridge was put up, and the talk it made.
     The first bridge in Caldwell county was built 1859 over Shoal, being a 
short distance this way from Kingston.  Prior to the building of bridges, 
drivers and riders sought out familiar fords by which to cross the creeks.  
The new bridge was on the state road which ran from Kingston to Hamilton and 
further.  The stone piers were laid by Ovie Hutchinson who lived in this 
county, and he did such good work that his piers lasted out two wood bridges.
     The first was a covered bridge 120 feed long, which like all covered 
bridges, was as dark as a tunnel.  It cost $6000.  The floor was made of heavy 
crosswise beams, covered with long planks running lengthwise.  Chas. Burnett 
remembers that he went through it in 1878 when he and his folks were on their 
way from Indiana to a new home in Caldwell county.  George Streeter recalls 
that in the late 60s, his ox cart wheel came off by the old bridge and almost 
threw him into the Shoal creek.
     In the early part of the Civil War, this bridge was marked for 
destruction by the Southern sympathizers.  They were trying to destroy the 
passageway of Union troops into Kingston.  It was smeared with turpentine 
liberally to be burned, but the workers heard the report that Union troops 
were coming, so they were scared away.  It was about the time that the Court 
house at Kingston was burned (1860).
     As a side remark on this episode, Mr. Hemry said that much of the 
sectional feeling before the war and during the war was aroused by a certain 
Rev. or Elder Stone, a Hardshell Baptist preacher of Plattsburg, and 
Knoxville, who used to preach to the Hardshell Baptists in this county.  Some 
of the Hardshell Baptists (Primitive) were also Southern sympathizers.
     In the early 80s, the bridge showed weakness.  Chas. Hogsett who 
remembers that time tells of it.  The lower stringers broke, rendering the 
bridge unsafe.  Travel was suspended over the bridge by order of the county 
court to prevent accidents, and work was begun to repair it.  All teams 
habitually travelling it or those who were there by chance were compelled to 
ford the creek and climb the steep banks.  It was said to contain enough 
lumber for two bridges.  Even after this repair, some thought it was not safe 
to travel.
     It was torn down July 1894 to make room for the new steel one.  This 
bridge has always been used twice as much as any of the other bridges over 
Shoal creek.  The company who built the steel bridge took the old bridge on 
pay, and sold the bridge to the Hamilton and Kingston railroad to be used for 
ties.  The bridge having been under cover all its life was protected from the 
weather.
     Interviews  1934.


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